- http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/02/news/nepal.php





Nepal's Maoists come out of the jungle, into the mainstream
By Somini Sengupta The New York Times

FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2006
BHAKTAPUR, Nepal The rebels are coming out of the bush.

Ten years after waging war from their jungle redoubts in the hills, Nepal's Maoists are tiptoeing out onto mainstream political turf, raising hopes for an end to the deadly conflict but also clouds of uncertainty about the country's future.

Maoist cadres are openly organizing meetings in town squares and trolling for what they call "donations" for their party coffers.

Senior leaders who have spent most of the 10 years underground are holding news conferences. A series of rallies across the country culminated with a giant gathering Friday in the capital, Katmandu.

For Nepal, the challenge of reintegrating the rebels could not be more important. The country stands on the brink of historic change and the rebels, in large measure, hold the key to whether it treads the path of war or peace.

The rebels have already scored important victories. In late April, after three weeks of nationwide protests, King Gyanendra ceded control of the state to an interim government. Bowing to a central Maoist demand, a newly reinstated Parliament abolished the king's control over the army. The interim prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, says the government will also hold elections to draft a new constitution, another major rebel demand.

The government and the guerrillas held a first round of peace talks. But the challenge now is to see if the rebels can be brought into the fold of Nepal's politics, military and society.

For the time being, the rebels live in limbo, and so does Nepal.

Take the rebels' preparations for the rally Friday. A former guerrilla spent a hot afternoon last weekend emblazoning the walls of this ancient city on the edge of Katmandu with pictures of his commander, nicknamed Prachanda, "the fierce one." He had exchanged his fatigues for a jersey and jeans. His weapon was a paint roller and a bucket of glue. No longer did he have to paint revolutionary graffiti under the cover of dark, as he had only months ago, or dodge the police. Already, he had spent a year in jail.

But asked for his name, the young man was unsure whether to give his real name (Rakesh Bati) or the one he had adopted during his four years underground (Comrade Rahul Shrestha). Either way, the erstwhile Comrade Rahul crisscrossed the narrow lanes of Bhaktapur, slapping up rally posters.

A fellow party worker, Ram Rajkhal, doled out leaflets and collected contributions. Elsewhere, he could be mistaken for a schoolboy selling raffle tickets.

"In the past, they destroyed telephone towers and electricity lines," Bidur Giri, a worker at the timber yard, said quietly from the sidelines. "Now they are saying they'll do something good. I don't know."

A baker studied a poster that had been pasted next to his shop.

"After 10 years of war, there's hope for peace," Bhimsen Sapkota volunteered. "I want to hear what they say. I've never heard them speak." He said he would attend the rally.

The rebels refuse to disarm before elections, out of distrust of the military. But they have said they will sequester their troops under international supervision so long as the military agrees to do the same. Second, the rebels insist that their troops should be integrated into a new national army, a move about which the government is still reticent. Third, they demand that Parliament be dissolved and oppose the restoration of local government institutions in the countryside, much of which they effectively control.

On Thursday, the Maoist spokesman, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, threatened to pull out of peace talks if the last two conditions were unmet.

Both sides want the United Nations to monitor the cease-fire accord and possibly broker talks.

"I'm a confused optimist," said Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of Himal Southasian, a news magazine, and among Nepal's most prominent journalists. "Confused because we need to decide on so many matters now. How to bring the Maoists in, that's the immediate problem - but also how to restructure the state."

In the twilight between war and peace, Nepal remains on edge.

Demonstrations break out in a flash. One day in May, the death of a patient at a hospital in Katmandu prompted a band of protesters to rough up hospital workers and try to set the hospital on fire. The same day, transportation workers erupted in a strike.

The daily disorder is a measure of what is arguably the government's most pressing challenge: to restore stability and assure a restless, still enraged citizenry that the state security forces remain loyal to the state. The army and the police are still widely viewed in this country as having violently repressed the pro-democracy protests in April.

The government suspended three senior commanders of the security forces last month. "The government is looking at security forces with suspicion, the security forces are looking at the government with resentment," said one foreign diplomat in Katmandu, who asked not to be identified to avoid being perceived as meddling in Nepal's internal affairs. "The most essential thing for the political parties now is to realize that things may very, very quickly break down."

The Maoists, meanwhile, have not exactly abandoned their old ways.

Although the number of killings and abductions has plummeted, reports of Maoist violence continue to pour in from the countryside.

In the southern town of Chitwan, the rebels abducted and killed a man they accused of claiming to collect money in the name of the Maoists, according to the independent human rights group Advocacy Forum; his body was dumped in a field.

In the western district of Surkhet, six schoolteachers accused of rape were abducted; one of the kidnapped men escaped, only to be hounded for cash, also according to Advocacy Forum.

Young members of the People's Liberation Army, interviewed during a public rally in the southern village, said they remained prepared for war. "How can you say it's safe or unsafe? There's still uncertainty," said a hotelier, Pratap Tulachan, in the southern town of Butwal. "People are still scared of those days."

Maoist operations have certainly become less furtive. On a Friday afternoon in late May, in the picturesque hillside town of Palpa, a veteran party leader, Pampa Bhusal, sipped tea with comrades and made preparations for a rally to be held the next morning in the main town park.

Bhusal, a central committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), was a lawyer in the capital and a fiery student leader before slipping underground over a decade ago to join the rebellion.

On this day, she could hardly contain her delight at the prospect of returning to Katmandu. Only once in her years underground had she gone home to the city. "One month ago, I worked only underground," she said. "Now I work underground and over ground also."


BHAKTAPUR, Nepal The rebels are coming out of the bush.

Ten years after waging war from their jungle redoubts in the hills, Nepal's Maoists are tiptoeing out onto mainstream political turf, raising hopes for an end to the deadly conflict but also clouds of uncertainty about the country's future.

Maoist cadres are openly organizing meetings in town squares and trolling for what they call "donations" for their party coffers.

Senior leaders who have spent most of the 10 years underground are holding news conferences. A series of rallies across the country culminated with a giant gathering Friday in the capital, Katmandu.

For Nepal, the challenge of reintegrating the rebels could not be more important. The country stands on the brink of historic change and the rebels, in large measure, hold the key to whether it treads the path of war or peace.

The rebels have already scored important victories. In late April, after three weeks of nationwide protests, King Gyanendra ceded control of the state to an interim government. Bowing to a central Maoist demand, a newly reinstated Parliament abolished the king's control over the army. The interim prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, says the government will also hold elections to draft a new constitution, another major rebel demand.

The government and the guerrillas held a first round of peace talks. But the challenge now is to see if the rebels can be brought into the fold of Nepal's politics, military and society.

For the time being, the rebels live in limbo, and so does Nepal.

Take the rebels' preparations for the rally Friday. A former guerrilla spent a hot afternoon last weekend emblazoning the walls of this ancient city on the edge of Katmandu with pictures of his commander, nicknamed Prachanda, "the fierce one." He had exchanged his fatigues for a jersey and jeans. His weapon was a paint roller and a bucket of glue. No longer did he have to paint revolutionary graffiti under the cover of dark, as he had only months ago, or dodge the police. Already, he had spent a year in jail.

But asked for his name, the young man was unsure whether to give his real name (Rakesh Bati) or the one he had adopted during his four years underground (Comrade Rahul Shrestha). Either way, the erstwhile Comrade Rahul crisscrossed the narrow lanes of Bhaktapur, slapping up rally posters.

A fellow party worker, Ram Rajkhal, doled out leaflets and collected contributions. Elsewhere, he could be mistaken for a schoolboy selling raffle tickets.

"In the past, they destroyed telephone towers and electricity lines," Bidur Giri, a worker at the timber yard, said quietly from the sidelines. "Now they are saying they'll do something good. I don't know."

A baker studied a poster that had been pasted next to his shop.

"After 10 years of war, there's hope for peace," Bhimsen Sapkota volunteered. "I want to hear what they say. I've never heard them speak." He said he would attend the rally.

The rebels refuse to disarm before elections, out of distrust of the military. But they have said they will sequester their troops under international supervision so long as the military agrees to do the same. Second, the rebels insist that their troops should be integrated into a new national army, a move about which the government is still reticent. Third, they demand that Parliament be dissolved and oppose the restoration of local government institutions in the countryside, much of which they effectively control.

On Thursday, the Maoist spokesman, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, threatened to pull out of peace talks if the last two conditions were unmet.

Both sides want the United Nations to monitor the cease-fire accord and possibly broker talks.

"I'm a confused optimist," said Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of Himal Southasian, a news magazine, and among Nepal's most prominent journalists. "Confused because we need to decide on so many matters now. How to bring the Maoists in, that's the immediate problem - but also how to restructure the state."

In the twilight between war and peace, Nepal remains on edge.

Demonstrations break out in a flash. One day in May, the death of a patient at a hospital in Katmandu prompted a band of protesters to rough up hospital workers and try to set the hospital on fire. The same day, transportation workers erupted in a strike.

The daily disorder is a measure of what is arguably the government's most pressing challenge: to restore stability and assure a restless, still enraged citizenry that the state security forces remain loyal to the state. The army and the police are still widely viewed in this country as having violently repressed the pro-democracy protests in April.

The government suspended three senior commanders of the security forces last month. "The government is looking at security forces with suspicion, the security forces are looking at the government with resentment," said one foreign diplomat in Katmandu, who asked not to be identified to avoid being perceived as meddling in Nepal's internal affairs. "The most essential thing for the political parties now is to realize that things may very, very quickly break down."

The Maoists, meanwhile, have not exactly abandoned their old ways.

Although the number of killings and abductions has plummeted, reports of Maoist violence continue to pour in from the countryside.

In the southern town of Chitwan, the rebels abducted and killed a man they accused of claiming to collect money in the name of the Maoists, according to the independent human rights group Advocacy Forum; his body was dumped in a field.

In the western district of Surkhet, six schoolteachers accused of rape were abducted; one of the kidnapped men escaped, only to be hounded for cash, also according to Advocacy Forum.

Young members of the People's Liberation Army, interviewed during a public rally in the southern village, said they remained prepared for war. "How can you say it's safe or unsafe? There's still uncertainty," said a hotelier, Pratap Tulachan, in the southern town of Butwal. "People are still scared of those days."

Maoist operations have certainly become less furtive. On a Friday afternoon in late May, in the picturesque hillside town of Palpa, a veteran party leader, Pampa Bhusal, sipped tea with comrades and made preparations for a rally to be held the next morning in the main town park.

Bhusal, a central committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), was a lawyer in the capital and a fiery student leader before slipping underground over a decade ago to join the rebellion.

On this day, she could hardly contain her delight at the prospect of returning to Katmandu. Only once in her years underground had she gone home to the city. "One month ago, I worked only underground," she said. "Now I work underground and over ground also."