A Maoist victory could result in genocide, writes Gwynne Dyer. > >'If we have a Pol Pot scenario, this would be extremely >destabilising for the region," said a Western diplomat in Nepal when >the last ceasefire went into effect early last year. "India would >probably come in and that would upset the Chinese and Pakistan and >who knows what would happen." > >Unfortunately, we may soon find out what would happen next, because >the Maoist rebels in Nepal may be only a year or two away from >victory. > >The ceasefire of last year is long over, and the insurgents already >control almost half the country. On August 18 they declared a >blockade of the capital, and for a week almost nothing and nobody >moved on the roads in or out of the Kathmandu valley (population 1.5 >million). Then they lifted the blockade and let the city have fresh >food again - but not because they had to. They didn't even have to >put roadblocks on the highways; they closed them by threats alone. >They can do it again whenever they want. > >There have been attempts at reform from above in Nepal, but they all >quickly ran out of steam. Mass demonstrations in 1990 forced King >Birendra to allow multi-party democracy, but it never really worked >since all the major parties were led by people from the old elite >who saw them simply as another opportunity to feather their nests. > >Then in 2001 a drunken Crown Prince Dipendra murdered his parents, >King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, along with several other members >of the royal family in a shooting rampage. Dipendra, who had been >forbidden to marry the woman of his choice, then shot himself. > >When the shooting stopped, the last man standing was Gyanendra, >brother to Birendra and now King in his stead. The trouble is that >most ordinary Nepalese were very fond of Birendra and suspect >Gyanendra of having some part in his death. It's almost certainly >untrue, but it is a measure of his unpopularity. > >Indeed, the only thing that inspires much loyalty to the 55-year-old >Gyanendra is the fact that if he dies - and male members of the >Nepali ruling family generally die of heart attacks before they turn >50 - then he will be succeeded by his bratty son Paras, who shows no >more interest or concern for the real Nepal than his socialite >friends. > >King Gyanendra suspended Nepal's shoddy democracy two years ago, and >has since ruled through prime ministers appointed from the small >pro-monarchy party. He has also turned the Nepalese Army loose on >the rebels, causing a steep rise in the killing. Ten thousand have >died since the guerilla war began in 1996, but at least half of >those were killed in the past two years. > >The Maoists could well win in Nepal but that would be a much bigger >disaster, for they belong to the same tradition of ultra-egalitarian >and anti-foreign extremism that animated the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia >and Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) in Peru. Mercifully, the >latter group never attained power, but between 1975 and 1979 the >Khmer Rouge murdered about a quarter of Cambodia's population in a >drive to exterminate everybody who was a "class enemy" or had been >exposed to foreign influences. > >"Comrade Prachandra", the 42-year-old former horticulture teacher >who is the Nepali Maoists' leader, never gives interviews, but the >deputy leader, Baburam Bhattarai - whose PhD thesis was a Marxist >analysis of Nepal's problems - was chilling when asked whether his >movement's policies would be similar to those of the Khmer Rouge: >"There is no independent and authentic account of events in Cambodia >under the Khmer Rouge available so far. Whatever is emanating from >the Western media appears to be highly exaggerated." In other words, >they are the same. > >If the Maoists win, an early Indian intervention might spare the >Nepalese population the worst horrors of a Khmer Rouge-style >genocide, but only at the cost to India of a long and thankless >guerilla war in Nepal. Nepal is heading straight for hell, and >nobody in the country seems remotely capable of stopping it. > >Gwynne Dyer is a London-based journalist. >