Nepali Congress Planning to Arm Youth Wing against Maoists

A prime target of the Nepali Congress--the Maoist YCL

Himalayan Times,  December 8, 2009

NC planning to arm youth: Khadka

CHANDRANIGHAPUR: Former home minister and Nepali Congress leader Khum Bahadur Khadka said that his party was planning to form a youth wing armed with weapons to curb the anarchic activities of the UCPN-Maoist. Speaking at a mass meet organised by Jana Jyoti Multiple Campus in Chandranighapur, Rautahat Khadka said, “With increased incidents of the Maoists’ highhandedness in the country, our party felt the necessity for an armed youth wing.”

Khadka alleged that the Maoists were trying to seize the state power through violence and extortions. “The Maoists are trying to impose totalitarianism in the country,” said Khadka. He said that his party cadres were time and again attacked by the Maoists and he urged the latter to refrain from such illegal acts.

Referring to the contribution of NC president Girija Prasad Koirala in signing the 12-point agreement Khadka claimed “The Maoists have progressed to the present stage, thanks to the NC.” He urged all the democratic forces to abide by the 12-point agreement for the betterment of the country and its people. He slammed Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum chairman Upendra Yadav calling him an irresponsible person. “Yadav did not play any significant role for the Madhes people when he was in the government. But once he was out of the government he has been advocating the rights of the Madhesi people.”

He accused the Maoists of fabricating the Singapore dialogue and made it clear that the duo—Koirala and Maoist supremo Prachanda, agreed to form a high-level political mechanism and not topple the present government. “The present government has the full support of the NC”, Khadka added.

Nepal: Ganesh Man Pun on the Young Communist League

Telegraph India, December 10, 2009

Nepal Maoists on bullet & ballot road

Kathmandu: He is late on account of an eddy of his own making — one of an interminable string of Maoist road blockades that daily make a grinding mess of downtown Kathmandu. When he finally arrives, he looks like a travesty of his calling card — a tiny man in a cheap windcheater and even cheaper shoes with a grubby helmet in hand, more like the hundreds of faceless office clerks that populate Singha Durbar, Nepal’s sprawling seat of government.

It is only when he begins to reveal his assured tone and his organised mind that Ganesh Man Pun slowly evolves into the image of who he really is — chief of the Young Communist League (YCL), the Nepali Maoists’ much vaunted and much feared apparatchik wing.

Not so long ago, Pun was public enemy number one, he’d never have stirred near these precincts. Today, he’s remarkably at ease in the high halls of the state he still wants to pull down. “The revolution is not over,”

Pun says as an explanation of current tactics and future objectives, “but we realise that in the 21st century, we must employ a mix of the bullet and the ballot, political action and military action have to be fused. The guerrilla war phase of our struggle is over and we are in the mainstream. We think we can achieve our aims with mass mobilisation but if the forces of feudalism and imperialism resist the kind of state we want, we shall have to use force.” Assurance inlaid with warning. Bluntly put, give us the state peacefully, or we are capable of taking it by force.