EXPLAINING MAOIST STRATEGY: IT'S ALL
IN THE SCRIPT
By Dr. Thomas A.
Marks

Even as I write, events in
Nepal unfold as if a Broadway play ¨C nary a miscue from
the script passed out months ago in the Nepalese media.

Having declared a
"ceasefire inside the Kathmandu Valley," thus to gain the media "spin" that
would necessarily come from "peaceful protestors" being "attacked," the Maoists
proceeded elsewhere in the country to attack positions. The Butwal attack is
only the most recent example.

Open use of violence "outside" the urban
centers has been accompanied by orchestrated rioting "inside." That the foreign
media (with the help of the

anti-government sectors in the Nepali media)
persist in calling such "peaceful protest" only demonstrates how thoroughly
detached they are from the reality of the people's war approach.

From the Maoist Playbook

To
outline the Maoist strategy for those who were not present at the auditions for
parts:

¡ñ Overload the security forces "inside" while attacking with main
forces "outside." Claim to be only supporting "peaceful" forces for
change.

¡ñ Use government troop deployments to advantage. If the security
forces must move more men inside, flow into the vacuums left behind. If they
move outside, send urban partisans inside.

¡ñ Exploit every death and
claim that any setback (e.g. failure to overthrow the government) proves that
only the violent way is left to install "absolute democracy."

¡ñ Break
the RNA at all costs. RNA is the one real obstacle remaining in the quest for
power. So caught up is the SPA in its short-term effort to remain relevant that
it is oblivious to long-term peril. SPA can be counted upon to mindlessly
perform on cue.

¡ñ Move now to exploit the opening provided by Indian
perfidy. New
Delhi senses an
opportunity to at long last create of
Nepal a dependency that will do as it is
told.

From the Maoist perspective, they have adopted a "win/win" course
of action: no matter what actually happens, they will benefit.

By
declaring a "ceasefire outside Kathmandu Valley," they seal off the battle area,
declaring that it will be a fight between rival bodies of manpower. They feel
that the SPA manpower on the streets can overwhelm whatever the police and APF
(the backup) can put on the playing field.

When the authorities make
mistakes, which ultimately they must if SPAM plans go off as scripted, the
government is again "human rights abusers" ¨C and the howls can already be heard
from the usual suspects. Some elements of the Nepali media appear to be working
deliberately to fan the anti-government flames.

Further, the violence
allows the Maoists to claim they at least gave "peace" a chance.

The
dream scenario, from the SPAM perspective, is to replay 1990, with masses
rushing across the open boulevard leading to the main palace gate, the troops
forced to open fire, bodies filmed by international media and beamed worldwide,
India declaring it can no longer stand by "as democracy
is
crushed."

Role of
India

India's role remains to be untangled, but no one who was
in Sri
Lanka
in July 1987 ¨C as I was ¨C can overlook the startling similarities. The Indian
invasion, conveniently disguised as the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force), was
but the culmination of half a decade of support for Tamil insurgents /
terrorists that New
Delhi thought it could "manage."

Then, as now, the
shape of the international arena played a significant role.
India, many have forgotten, had sided with
the Evil Empire. There were some 6-7,000 Soviet advisors in the country. It was
the first country outside the Warsaw Pact to receive the MIG-29 fighter, the
first (and only) ever to be rented a nuclear submarine.

Beyond all else,
in a relationship only now emerging from files of the KGB spirited out of the
country prior to the resumption of the authoritarianism, the government of
Indira Gandhi allowed itself to be fed Soviet disinformation that convinced it
Sri Lanka was a threat.

Alleged "special intelligence" provided by
Moscow purported to prove Colombo was on the verge of granting
Washington basing and spying facilities,
India

became involved with the Tamil
insurgents, eventually training, arming, and basing them. When an initial
massing of forces to invade in early 1984 was warned off by the Reagan
administration, Delhi simply waited for a more propitious moment. This
came in July 1987, as the Sri Lankans moved to crush the trapped insurgents in
Jaffna.

What that moment shares with
the present is the astonishingly bad "intelligence" that drove Indian
policymaking, as well as the claim that "foreign hands" support the monarch.
Putting the word in quotation marks only highlights what Indian field commanders
realized within days of landing in Jaffna ¨C there was little they had been given
in their briefing packets that was accurate.

That India's Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW) had produced "analysis" every bit as flawed as any in the
annals of intelligence debacles has since been recognized by no less than
India's imperious Proconsul at the time, J.N.Dixit (now deceased) ¨C though he
continued to claim, even in his last writings, that India's information on
America's intentions was completely reliable.

That
India had completely botched its assessments of Sri Lankan
ground realities would not surprise anyone who has followed what has emerged as
the dominant government position in the present Nepali crisis. Indeed, Indian
participants in panels held in Washington, DC, such as S.D. Muni, have distinguished
themselves principally in what can only be characterized as willful ignorance of
SPAM pronouncements and motives.

To cite but the most egregious example,
the Indians continue to claim SPAM is willing to negotiate for itself a role in
a parliamentary framework headed by a constitutional monarchy, even as the
Maoists give press conferences claiming they will try the monarch in a people's
court.

There do seem to be analysts who have correctly identified the
astonishingly strategic myopia involved in destabilizing
Nepal further even as
India itself grapples with its own growing
Maoist challenge. In his recent "India, Maoism and Nepal," former Finance
Minister Madhukar S.J.B. Rana hit the nail squarely on the head when he wrote,
"India is playing a dangerous game of pure real politic where it seeks to
intervene in Nepal militarily by using the Maoist [as published] as proxy under
the unbelievable propaganda 'to secure peace and democracy for the Nepalese
people and to arrest the impending refugee inflow into its own
territory'."

Change a word here and there, and the logic is identical to
the debacle that became IPKF. It is further noteworthy that in the three bloody
years that followed July 1987, IPKF acquitted itself well in "India's Vietnam"
(as it was called by the press), even as Indian policymakers sought to cast
blame for the blunder on anyone and everyone except themselves. (The most
ludicrous position, of course, was the very one the Maoists advance now: it is
all the fault of American imperialism.)

Where to From Here?

As irony
would have it, it is the growing amicability of India and the US which has served as the strategic cover for
New
Delhi to bring
Kathmandu to heel. Nepali sources have become increasingly
blunt (and strident) in the same manner as the Sri Lankans all those years ago,
as the Indian ties to
Nepali violence become more clear.

One does not
have to engage in plot mongering to posit that
India is making a major policy error in
steering its present course. Neither does one have to cast aspersions to point
out the obvious: the SPA portion of SPAM has been willing to play the quisling
for momentary political gain.

For it will be momentary, come what may.
Let us suppose that the present government collapsed tomorrow. Where would that
leave SPA? With two useless  pieces of
paper and a worthless sheath of promises.

What is tragic is that very
little would seem to separate the sides at the moment save profound mistrust.
The king agrees that parliamentary democracy should be restored with a
constitutional monarch. The Maoists claim they will accept a democratic republic
of whatever sort is decided by a
constitutional convention. SPA claims the
same. SPAM as a whole claims to desire a "ceremonial monarch" (but the "M" has
been unwilling to desist from claiming a trial or exile is the only way out for
the present monarch). RNA would become a true "national" army, which, not
surprisingly, it already thinks it is.

It is important  interject RNA into the discussion, because
the shape of any successor organization was a major sticking point in the
previous 2003 round of ceasefire talks. SPAM seems to think this institution
will simply agree to dissolve itself without discussions of what this
entails.

That this will not happen was put to the Maoists directly in
2003, but they were as unwilling then to grapple with the complexities thus
raised as they appear to be now. Yet the growing stratum of combat-tested,
politically astute officers is not simply going to go as lambs to the
slaughter.

Thus a great deal more thought is required upon the part of
all sides. This will not take place as long as SPAM persists in its present
course. Dr. Thomas A. 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.