I found this article quite interesting. ******************* Useful Idiots The Maoists do not want to antagonize the media and the human rights community. They want ýuseful idiotsý in these communities to continue to serve them as apologists. BY JOGENDRA GHIMIRE Finally, Comrade Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the spokesman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, faxed a statement last week on behalf of his party to the Federation of Nepalese Journalists, the FNJ. This came in response to an ultimatum that the umbrella body of Nepalýs media persons issued after the murder of journalist and human rights activist Dekendra Thapa by the Maoists. The FNJ had threatened to boycott all Maoists-related news if the Maoists failed to state clearly their position on freedom of expression, especially the way they viewed the media. As was expected, Mahara said that his party had no policy of attacking or persecuting journalists and indicated that all attacks on media by the rebels were aberrations. He also insisted that reporters had all the freedom to report from wherever they wanted, provided they took necessary permission from the local Maoist leaders for such visits and made the visits under their supervision. Already, questions are being asked about how committed the Maoists are to their pledge, and what stops them from releasing a couple of journalists they have taken hostage. But on the whole, Nepali societyýs ýuseful idiotsý are likely to take the assurance as gospel and give the Maoists a clean chit, despite their systematic attack on free speech. Lenin, the Soviet communist leader, used to refer to the apologists of the Soviet system in the western world as ýuseful idiots.ý These were people who, in their desire to appear objective, liberal and tolerant, debated about the virtues of the new Soviet communist order and tried to convince their peers in the democratic west that things were not as bad in the Eastern Bloc as they were believed to be. One of the most infamous of Leninýs band of ýuseful idiotsý was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Walter Duranty, The New York Timesý Moscow correspondent. Stationed in Moscow during Stalinýs man-made famine of the 30s, Duranty reported authoritatively that there was neither famine nor starvation nor was there likely to be one. He accused ýrumor factoriesý in the west of an anti-Soviet bias. It was not until the official Soviet statistics on the famines were released during Mikhail Gorbachevýs presidency that the true extent of famines became clear to the rest of the world. Chairman Maoýs famine in China is supposed to have killed in the region of 20 million people, and yet there were useful idiots who were vigorously opposing claims that the famine was a reality in the Peopleýs Republic. In hindsight, many more died of Soviet famines than in the hands of Hitlerýs fascist regime in the Holocaust, and far more died due to the Chinese famines. Through his statement addressed to the FNJ, Mahara and his party leadership were essentially trying to allay any concerns that Nepalýs civil societyýespecially the media and the human rights communityýmay have finally begun to develop and express about the Maoist partyýs tactics of targeting individuals by orchestrating kangaroo court judgments that are based on such charges as ýenemy of the revolution.ý Clearly the Maoist party does not want to openly antagonize the media and the human rights community and wants to ensure that the band of ýuseful idiotsý in those communities continue to serve them by being vociferous apologists for them. By all indications, the rebels have been admirably successful in leveraging the voices of these ýuseful idiotsý to put the Nepali establishment on the defensive. While attacking the lonely soldier on a leave of absence from duty or a helpless schoolteacher in a far off village for failure to adhere to their dictates, they have been extremely careful not to ruffle the feathers of human rights workers and the media. These are groups with a voice. When they killed Dekendra Thapa, Mahara and his leadership were essentially testing the waters. They wanted to see if the apologists in the media and the human rights community would take it as just another death. As was evident, they did not. But despite having got the message loud and clearýthat the Maoists will come at the media and the human rights workers when they feel sufficiently confidentýit is unfortunate that the civil society declines to confront the fundamentals of an armed offensive. As a reaction to the insurgentsý killing of a fellow journalist, all that the FNJ would ask of the Maoists was an assurance that no more journalists would be killed. Doesnýt that, by implication, mean that it condones the killings of other groupsýthousands of innocent Nepalis who are neither journalists nor human rights workers? http://www.nation.com.np/archive/archive_23_23_columns_23a.htm