The Project

Nepal is a country on the edge of the Himalayas, natural beauty of its level is rarely found elsewhere on earth. Mt Everest is within its territory and it sits on the boarder between the disputed Chinese region of Tibet. To the South is North India also a notoriously turbulent area. Some of the greatest heights of human achievement have been within Nepal’s boarders. Buddhism was founded there, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top of Everest for the first time in 1953 and The Royal Nepali Army held the might of the British Empire at bay for over one hundred years. It is the only nation in the Indian subcontinent that has never been a colony of anyone, that has remained, to put it simply, a free country.

Since 1996 the Maoist party, representing the majority of the countries rural regions has been in open rebellion against the government. In 2006, in alliance with seven of the parties that had served in the semi-democratic governments under previous kings, the Maoists brought down the Kings autocracy and implemented a process of drafting a constitution for the first republic of Nepal.

This revolution was catalysed by the PLA – People’s Liberation Army, an army made u mainly of Nepali people aged 16-30, the same as the readership of this paper. It is armed wing of the Maoists, which had forced most of the country out of the hands of the King by 2006. The ten year civil war had been brutal and both sides had been accused of many human rights violations. The PLA is no whiter than white organisation, but in the first free and fair elections its politicians won over 55% of the popular vote.

The Project spoke to Anant, the (deputy) leader of the PLA. He is titled deputy leader because the Maoist party leader is the formal head but it is in fact Anant who is in direct control of the PLA. 

Q At the moment you control the single largest block of constituents but you are no longer in government because of a disagreement between yourselves and the other parties. Perhaps you cold explain what that disagreement was and what other influences and powers there are that have come into play?

ANANT: The situation of Nepal is that it is semi-colonial, semi feudalist and semi capitalist. That means a big influence and domination by the international community, international power centre. That means that the government is not only influenced by the Nepalese, not only the influence of political parties. It’s directly and massively influenced by the international power centre. The Maoists have been strictly patriotic, a people-orientated power and the international powers don’t want them to be. And also revolutionary in their interests that’s why

Q You have said Nepal was semi-feudal, but also that Nepal is semi-colonial still because of the 1950 agreement with India. I was hoping you might be able to say a bit about your objectives with that and also how that impacts upon the lives of the Nepalese at the moment.

ANANT: In the 1950s treaty there is a different aspect from which we have been a semi-colony of India. That is political, economic, defence, security. In article number 5 of the treaty it says people of both countries can trade without any permission. That gives the sense of discrimination. India has millions and millions of population and Nepal has a tiny population compared to India. On the basis of security the treaty says if we had to bring some sensitive weapons from third party countries we have to do it under a mutual understanding. Nepal must ask to bring any sensitive weapons from any third party countries. Thirdly when one of us has to go to war with the third party, they have to ask. But when India went to war with Pakistan three times it didn’t ask. We brought from China, we bought from Belgium, but they protested. They signed an a nuclear agreement, but didn’t ask.

LALDWOJ (another member of the Politburo): In the treaty economically the Indian citizens are welcome to stay here, doing business here, buy land here, they have the right to establish here. We do have but India is more prosperous than us, by population they are bigger than us. So it’s not an equal article. We can’t afford to go there and build our houses and operate our businesses. But they do have. And the example of bringing weapons in 1989 when we brought weapons from China, they objected to it and they blocked it.

Q: What do you think of Nepal’s relationship with the United States and its interaction with Nepali politics?

ANANT: American Imperialism is first financial imperialism with controls all over the world. From one centre - that is America. To protect their financial imperialism, they have armed imperialism to protect the, worldwide. And then, to legalise them, they do political imperialism. That is one polar globalisation so in that way, directly or indirectly, we have colonial influence from America. Principally it is imperialist, this has come in different forms, so directly during the People’s war they gave money, they gave weapons, they gave arms support as well. Some commanders came here to train the Royal Nepal Army. That’s the direct influence. And also the ambassador of the United States at that time, he spoke against the people’s war.

Q: The Americans still describe the Maoist party here as a terrorist organisation. Could you give us any more detail about their activities against you, their rhetoric against you? And perhaps you have a message for them that you could say?

ANANT: America claims they are the most democratic and developed country in the world. We understand they have double standards of democracy. It is because Yasser Arafat, who was awarded with a Nobel prize, he was on the list of terrorists by the American government. Nelson Mandela, he was on the list of terrorists for many years. The best known freedom fighter in the world was on the list of terrorists. The first elected government of the republic of Nepal the first leader of the republic of Nepal. even he is still on the list of terrorists. And also it is simple for American democracy, it is simple for America as well. I want to request they review it, it is a mandate of the people of the Nepal and the first mandated party after the republic of Nepal.

This might not be democracy, if America doesn’t give trademark, the mark that it is democratic then it will not be democratic... It should not be. Who is democratic and who is not should be selected by the people of their own country.

Q: So you are in good company on the list of terrorists?

[Bitter Laughter]

Q: This is a question for every left-winger out there. How do you mobilise a million people onto the streets and 19,000 into an army to try and overthrow an undemocratic state?

ANANT: Actually we had 124,000 PLA members, 30,000 full time professional members and millions of party members. We had got 3 million votes (it was 55% who voted). The mandate of the most recent figure is to lead the nation by Maoists. The process of making the new constitution and government should go further. Some of the personalities want the Maoists to go far away from the peace process. They do something against the peace process and want to label it a terrorist group and ban it and suppress it.

Q: Going back to 2006 when the people rose up, I was hoping you could talk about the organisation of that and what happened.

ANANT: We were at war at that time. On the face of it there were seven legal political parties and on the back we mobilised the people from the villages, from cities. We did a lot of work to mobilise all of the people. I was in charge of the Kathmandu Valley and surroundings. In one district, 91,000 people were mobilised from there only one district and there are eight districts from around here, so we can imagine how many people were there. It was the biggest moment - but hard to believe though.

Q: What vision do you have for the Nepali people and Nepal in 20 years time. Would you like to see it as a developed country? Such as London?

ANANT: In twenty years, during the period of election we have a project for making Nepal one of the most prosperous, modern countries in the world in twenty years [shows us the map].

 

Q: So, finally could you outline the position of the Maoists and PLA is respect to the new constitution and new republic? 

ANANT: We are not in the old position. We have changed our position at the moment and we are in the process of restructuring the state and making a new constitution. The change means that the Communist party of Maoists wants to change the early structure. It was controlled by the unitary government before - from unitary government, it wants to make federal government. To diversify the power. The second is the move from monarchy to republic. Non-democratic to democratic. These are the things that we want to change. In the same course, the military force, armed force, is the major part of the government, of the state. We want to make the army, to give some to the people, to the restructured state. Not to the leader, to the monarch or a single state government. I introduce the new army for the new state. The integration between the Nepal army and the People’s Liberation army makes the National Army, a new army for a new state.

So that’s the point of integration of the army. In the same way the constitution for the people means the federation people’s republic constitution. That’s what the Maoists want to make. It gives the solution to what has been seen as forms of discrimination. It solves all sorts of discriminations: racial discrimination, class, communal discrimination, ethnic, cultural, gender discrimination and regional discrimination. The five forms of discrimination will be solved. That sort of constitution should be made.

RICHARD REYNOLDS
EDITOR-AT-LARGE

 

 

 

 

Translated by: Tasi Lama, Foreign Affairs Coordinator for the Tamang National Liberation Front. With additional research by Patrick Hayes Volunteer coordinator for the education charity WORLDWrite