Summary: Nepal’s New Agreement

The following are two posts from the “United We Blog” commentator. The first one is the most recent one.

Maoists Got What They Wanted: “Roundtable Conference!”
Posted on December 23rd, 2007 by UWB

Emerging from the interaction, CPN Maoist Chairman Prachanda told reporters that the conference was in fact the roundtable conference his party had been demanding.

Interesting remarks by the comrade! So that was what all Maoist hue and cry of round table conference about? According to reports, an interaction program was organized this afternoon that was attended by a handful of ‘prominent’ civil society members and Seven-Party Alliance leaders.

During the interaction civil society personalities urged the SPA to stand united to hold the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections within the current Nepali year (mid-April 2008). Senior leaders of the major factions of the SPA who took part in the interaction program said that they took the suggestions positively.

A Shameful Silence at Year’s End

“Where’s the internationalism?“

by Mike Ely

The RCP did their annual round up of the year in pictures in this issue of their newspaper Revolution. Go look.

Several things stand (to me) in this year-end ussue:

1) In the roundup of “the Year in Struggle,” literally no mention of the life-and-death struggle for revolution in south asia. (There no mention of Nepal, or India in particular — where Maoist forces have been waging difficult struggles.)

And there is no mention of other Maoists of the world at all (that I could find).

2) Also: There is no mention of the major leap in international communist unity and struggle represented by the “International Seminar” organized by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) on the theme of “Imperialism and Proletarian Revolution in the 21st Century.”

End to Nepal’s Monarchy?

Under great pressure the government parties of Nepal have apparently agreed to end the monarchy and institute a republic. This comes after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had withdrawn from the government three months ago, and there was great speculation that they may restart the armed struggle (in the form of protracted peoples war or a final insurrection.)

I will comment on these developments elsewhere, but for now here is a news report from the NYT…

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India: Maoist Jailbreak

110 Maoists escape from Dantewada jail

RAIPUR: In a daring jailbreak, 299 inmates including 110 naxal
activists escaped from the Dantewada jail in Chattisgarh after prison
guards were overpowered in a planned action in which three guards and
two undertrials were injured during firing and clashes.

The incident happened around 4.35 PM when the inmates were being
served food after a lone naxalite commandar Sujit Kumar overpowered a
jail guard inside the prison and snatched his weapon.

Kumar then fired and injured three other guards, Dantewada jail
sources said. As many as 377 inmates are in the district prison, about
375 km from the state capital, which is located in a naxal infested area.

The naxals snatched six rifles of the guards and one wireless set
belonging before they fled.

Rahul Sharma, Superintendent of Police, Dantewada said the jail break
was a “pre-medidated conspiracy” hatched by the undertrials who were
mostly naxal supporters.

A search operation has been launched.

SFGate: Maoist Growth in India

ScottH sent:

Rebel armies tap into popular grievances in India

Jason Motlagh, Chronicle Foreign Service, Sunday, December 2, 2007

(12-02) 04:00 PST South Bastar, India — Two years ago, Comrade Sunil spent his days studying in a school classroom and toiling in corn and rice fields in his ancestral village. But life abruptly changed one night after he returned to find his home torched and his older brother shot dead by a state-sponsored civilian militia on the pretext that he had been a rebel sympathizer.

Now, warming his hands by a campfire deep in the mountain jungles of southern Chhattisgarh state, the 18-year-old member of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army promised never to give up the homemade rifle lying on his lap.

“The government does not care at all about the people here, and armed revolution is the only way to change this,” said Sunil, who refused to give his real name. The movement “is getting stronger because they know we fight for them.”

In the shadow of Bollywood and the info-tech boom, a little-known guerrilla war is being waged in at least 16 states across India by insurgents known as Naxalites. Estimated to have 20,000 fighters backed by a network of tens of thousands of villagers, they control about one-fifth of India’s forests and are active in 192 of the nation’s 604 administrative districts. Currently, 20 of India’s 28 states are affected by separatist conflicts, with Naxalites fighting in about 16 states, according to the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi think tank.