This letter is well written and worth a read except the last part..

- http://www.kathmandupost.com/columns.php

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Dear Prachanda,

February 13th will be the 10th anniversary of the Maoist movement in Nepal and I cannot help but be amazed at how the movement has degenerated into a tragedy of human suffering. The questions that I raise below for Pushpakamal Dahal alias Comarade Prachanda must have been contemplated by Nepali the world over at one point or the other. Comrade, we want to know your answers -

The armed struggle started with a clarion call to Nepali people to 'march along the path of the People's War to smash the reactionary state and establish a new democratic state'. Now large swaths of the country are under your control. But have you allowed any democratic freedom in these areas? Hypothetically, what would you do to a person if he refuses to provide free dinner to your cadres at his place?
To quote you: "My vision of a perfect Nepal is a democratic new Nepal, free from the exploitation of feudalism, working for economic and cultural prosperity." But in areas under your control, for example, you are forcing people to do collective farming. You are also encroaching on their centuries old traditions and religious sentiments and supplanting them with your own.

You started your movement with the singular objective of freeing Nepali people from the yoke of feudal bondage obviously – 'a just cause'. But does it not appear from the very beginning to the present day that the goal is not freedom for us all but freeing us from one master's yoke to another master's – yours?

When asked about the bombing of a civilian bus last year- Baburam Bhattarai in his interview to the BBC Nepali edition while acknowledging it as a 'mistake' at the same time exposed the utter disregard your movement has for an individual. He said something to the effect: "In the aspiration of a great cause such incidents happen and should be overlooked." When asked about the brutal killing of Ganesh Chilwal, President of the Maoist Victim Association, he almost sniggered. So should I dare say that in your scheme, an individual doesn't have any intrinsic value?

You are a die-hard anti-revisionist: You have time and again repeated that you don't want to associate with revisionists – like Nepali Communists ('traitors' in your word) who change their ideologies with the changing times and yet you have now joined hands with them. Moreover, you have also joined hands with those ('fascists' in your words) who during their tenure unleashed force on you. Is this a part of a bigger game-plan or a more inclusionist policy that many of us would enthusiastically support?

Ten years have passed – thousands have been butchered, maimed, disappeared, tortured, tens of thousands have been forced to leave their natal places, hundreds of thousands live in constant fear of persecution at your hands and the 'feudal' State. What kind of liberation are we looking forward to?

Why the farce of declaring ceasefires with the king when the goal is just to expand and regroup? We are fed up with this cycle of short sham ceasefires followed by long durations of war. After the last ceasefire was broken, we saw deadly raids by frenzied Maoist masses on a police headquarters (which you might say was executed in anticipatory self-defense) and several other incident of human casualties all over the country.

At least, there was one commendable act: You declared that the prisoners you took in the aftermath of the raid would be treated as prisoners of war obligatory to the articles of Geneva Convention. Twenty one prisoners have since been released which should be commended, not all however. But isn't it ironical that you are abiding by the international law in one particular case while at the same time violating it in almost all the other cases? The recent shooting to death of the Mayoral candidate of Biratnagar being one.

Finally, I would like to end by stating that your ideology has inspired legions of Nepalis. Nevertheless, if I am asked to choose between a despot I know of (monarch) and one that I don't know of (because it appears that you are headed that direction) – I will be tempted to choose the one I already know of. Though I don't wish to choose a mindless despot who is playing havoc with the lives of millions of Nepalis to serve his own selfish purpose I cannot choose you either because of the questions that I still have about you and your present form.

Sincerely yours,

Avantika Regmi