NEPAL: Hope is Not a Method Dr Thomas A. Marks Dr. Marks is a political risk consultant based in Honolulu, Hawaii and a frequent visitor to Nepal. He has authored a number of benchmark works on Maoist insurgency. As Nepal moves towards a new order, its governing parliamentarians would do well to heed that most fundamental of maxims: hope is not a method. To date, events have gone reasonably smoothly, but there continue to be ominous signs that a rougher road lies ahead. Not least of the elements for concern is that which has been at the heart of the matter all along, the motives of the Maoist insurgents. Contrary to much ill-considered opinionating, the Maoists have not opted for peace in our time. Instead, their forces remain intact, even as they encourage the government to dismantle the only intact force that stands between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), or CPN(M), and its ability to work its will, the security forces. Situation Its grudging moves towards negotiations notwithstanding, the Maoists have been very consistent. In their verbiage, in their briefings to their cadres, and even in their interviews given to members of the international media, they make clear that they do not accept the present state of things. Instead, they are convinced that they are riding the "will of history" that will see the complete ouster of the old-order. They view the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) present course as an error of major proportions and are fearful that they – “the people” – will be "betrayed." They certainly do not accept parliamentary democracy as the end-state, unless it emerges in a form of which they approve. What stands behind their present tactical maneuvering is a willingness to go with the flow so long as the river does not leap its banks. If the SPA will do the work armed rebellion could not accomplish – especially, dismantle the security forces and do away with even a figurehead monarchy – that is agreeable. But one cannot expect them, if things do not go their way, simply to shrug and say they had their moment. There is a veritable cottage industry of historical falsification abounding, in Nepal and abroad at the moment, which states the Maoists turned to insurgency only because they were not allowed to participate in parliamentary elections (as Masal). That is false. The machinations that led to one wing of Masal being allowed to run using party identification were an intra-Masal squabble, not something the system engineered. Likewise, the outrageous claim that the monarchy is somehow responsible for the violence of the Maoists is as astonishing as it is absurd. The Maoists first systematically laid waste to Nepal and its weak democracy, then systematically carried out a campaign to claim the reigning monarch had killed his brother and engineered what they, the Maoists, in fact had done – destroy Nepal. Having turned to armed insurgency, CPN(M) systematically destroyed the structure of the state, in the process eliminating all who opposed the local presence of the Maoists. Non-activists who tried to compile statistics were themselves assassinated. Having gained control of widespread areas, which they will continue to control during “elections,” no matter for what purpose those elections are held, they are not about to allow their rivals to freely contest within "liberated space." This is classic "machine politics," as the Maoists claim the Nepali Congress (NC) and Unified Marxist Leninists (UML) have been playing all these years. Since UML buys into this logic, at least partially, it is willing to front for the Maoists. The extremist wing of the UML does more than front -- it works with the Maoists. Role of India Ironically, anti-communist India has ended up letting its own Marxists have their moment by unduly influencing New Delhi's Nepal policy. This should not surprise, given the realities of coalition politics. The ruling United Progressive Alliance (a coalition led by Congress) has roughly 218 seats versus the 189 of the National Democratic Alliance (a coalition led by the BJP) -- of the total 543. With 71 independents, the 65 votes of the Left Front -- 43 of those 65 votes are CPI(Marxist) -- are what allow the UPA to rule (even in a hypothetical worst case scenario, 283-260). That is why the demands of the CPI(M) have been acceded to, and that is why CPI(M) figures such as Sitaram Yechury have become regular visitors to Kathmandu as they conduct the Indian left’s “foreign policy within a foreign policy.” Actions of Congress Party itself need little explaining -- this is the party that absorbed Sikkim, and that sees the Nepali King in the same light as the deposed Rajas of the princely states. This is the party that yet contains a wing that sees itself as heirs to "the Great Game." In their assessment, the king of Nepal should have gone the way of the Rajahs "back then," but the business of cleaning out the dead wood on the subcontinent was not finished. The result, as needs little recounting, has been regular and consistent interjection of India into the affairs of Nepal. Having done this yet one more time, in the present crisis, India now expects Nepali politics to function as that of a union territory in all but formal status. This issue is not one that need detain any analysis at this moment. It will ultimately be decided, one way or another, as it was in Sri Lanka, by nationalism of the target state. Nepali nationalism, to be sure, is something, which has rarely reared its head in anything save platitudes about "never having been a colony." In fact, Nepal is as thorough a colony as ever there was (of India and of the international community through its utter dependence upon external aid). Still, to be clear: first, India has no desire to become bogged down in the quicksand of Nepal, so having "democratic allies" in power is the proper route to realization of its geo-strategic designs; second, there is a strong wing of Indian politics that sees the present policy towards Nepal as misguided, counterproductive, and downright dangerous, given India's own Maoist threat. The claim that there are no connections between the Nepali and Indian Maoists is falsified by a wealth of evidence, not least the pronouncements and actions of the Nepali Maoists before they became more media savvy. The threat to Nepali sovereignty, then, is not from India per se but from the present situation that India has "enabled." Its view is that it can "handle" the situation. This remains to be seen -- just as India proved quite incapable of "handling" the Tamil insurgents. Internal Issues The most pressing danger, at this juncture, is that SPA, dominated by NC and UML, will revert to form (on full display during the dozen or so years of full democracy) and lead Nepal into a "Kerensky moment" for the Maoists, as occurred for the Bolsheviks in Russia of 1917-18. The Leninists were not the strongest party in post-Czarist Russia, only the party with a preponderance of force at the decisive point(s). This allowed them to gain control of the state and then to do what was necessary to consolidate their hold. This is also how Hitler consolidated his hold on Germany, despite having only one-third of the parliament (Reichstag). Further, it is what the Sandinistas did in post-Somoza Nicaragua. One already sees the Maoist thugs threatening even UML politicians (who, in any case, have always been on the cutting edge as victims of the Maoists). What all three of the cases just named share is that the security forces had fallen apart. This is not the case in Nepal. The key, therefore, is to make the new-order understand that the security forces have every intention and desire to serve democracy -- but that they will not stand by and see compromised restored democracy and Nepali sovereignty compromised. What they desire is what they have fought for -- a viable parliamentary democracy. Already, the Maoists have stated repeatedly that they have other goals: trials for those central to the old-order, especially for the monarch and the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) officer corps (the Maoist leadership has asserted both of these goals in its less guarded moments). This is also what they have been saying to their cadres. They have rejected integration into the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) by any name and demanded a new force, which they will dominate by default. This is just how the scenario played itself out in Nicaragua, the result being the Sandinista dictatorship, which rapidly produced its own counterrevolutionary insurgency by abusing the people. (Contrary to the hoary left-wing myth, the CIA could not even arm all the contras, so abundant was the influx of peasant manpower demanding the right to resist the Managua Marxist-Leninist dictatorship.) contd..