December 27, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 22, 1423

KATHMANDU: International backing for a ‘war for peace’ strategy to contain Nepal’s Maoist rebels reached a new threshold, as Washington officials began this week the process of putting them on the US terrorist list.

This classification would have key implications for immigration and funding for the insurgency, but more significantly, it signals a growing strategic convergence among India, the United States and Britain toward a policy of military containment of Nepal’s rebels.

This approach is in sharp contrast to that of the European donor community, which is backing peace talks and offering mediation to avoid further militarising the seven-year-old conflict that has claimed 7,500 lives.

The Maoist rebels are seeking to turn the world’s only Hindu kingdom into a communist republic.

The volatile situation after King Gyanendra’s takeover of executive powers on Oct 4 has made India, the United States and Britain uneasy that an increasingly desperate elite may pursue a settlement with the Maoist leadership, with destabilising consequences for the region.

Visiting Nepal in December, US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca put the Maoists on notice. “If you employ terrorist tactics, then you are in fact a terrorist,” she said, equating the Maoists and the tactics of Cambodia’s Pol Pot. US embassy officials afterwards moved quickly to list the Nepal Maoists as terrorists.

Maoist rebel leaders ‘obligingly provided’ Washington with a compelling rationale for the terrorist classification by acknowledging that they have killed two US embassy security personnel, said embassy sources here.

Ramesh Manandhar and Deepak Pokharel were targeted by the Maoists on charges of spying under diplomatic cover. The criteria for inclusion in the terrorist list includes making threats to US property, citizens and its diplomatic missions.

In a belated gesture to appease the international community, Baburam Bhattarai, the No 2 leader of the Communist Party Nepal (Maoists), said in an interview to the ‘Washington Times’ on Dec 14 that “henceforth if any such charges are levelled against any employee, the concerned embassy would be advised before taking action”.

Rocca reaffirmed US security assistance of $17 million for 2002 for Nepal to combat the Maoist insurgency.

This aid includes provision to the Royal Nepal Army of US M-16 rifles, which are expensive in comparison with the Indian equivalent that New Delhi is supplying at 70 per cent discount to Nepal. Also in the pipeline are 500 Belgian Minimi machineguns.

Over the last year, the US government for the first time began developing a military component to its developmental aid profile in Nepal.

The US Congress has also included in its omnibus anti- terrorism budgetary supplement a line item for Nepal of 20 million dollars.

In June, the US set up an office of defence cooperation here, staffed by a major. In July, a lieutenant colonel was posted as military attache to the US mission. Earlier this year was a visit by the US Pacific Command to Nepal to assess the army’s needs.

Nepal’s two neighbours, China and India, have been keenly watching the growing American military presence here.

China is uneasy about the implications for its sensitive Tibetan region, while India has welcomed and indeed invited US involvement.

In a volte-face of India’s traditional policy of ‘keep out’, senior Indian foreign ministry officials have taken the initiative and put Nepal on a common Indo-US agenda. Rocca drew attention “to a close and continuing dialogue with India” and others that wanted to see constitutional rule and multi-party democracy continue in Nepal.

Indian officials were first to affix the terrorist label on the Maoists, and backed this by providing key military aid and security cooperation along the open border with Nepal.

Ironically, despite allegations of India’s softness toward Nepali Maoist leaders reportedly sheltering across the border, Indian officials have emphasized the growing links between the Indian and the Nepali Maoists.

“We have a serious security concern,” Indian ambassador Shyam Saran said.

Indian Maoists are active in a belt running from India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh moving upwards through Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and abutting the Nepal border.

According to official Indian sources, any negotiated deal in Nepal that produces a government with “unreformed” revolutionary Maoists sharing power would have serious security consequences for India and its war against the Indian Maoists.

These ‘risks’ have been grown in the wake of the Oct 4 takeover by the king and the widening rift between the monarchy and political parties, who have rejected as ‘illegitimate’ the king’s nominated government.

The monarchy has sought to exploit disillusionment with 12 years of multi-party democracy to marginalize the main political parties- the Nepali Congress and the parliamentary Communist Party of Nepal (UML).

Both are now mobilizing mass street protests, and some say the risk is that the Maoists would eventually take over the mass mobilization against a proactive monarchy.

The monarchy’s moves to appropriate the budgetary decision- making power to increase tenfold the household expenditure of the Palace and to determine senior appointments have also struck alarm bells.

“It’s not the size of the increased expenditure which is as worrying as the implications for the steady erosion of the constitutional framework, which incrementally is being rendered irrelevant by these proactive decisions of the monarchy,” said advocate Bishwakant Mainali.

In the midst of this political volatility is the rhetoric of openness towards “talks” reiterated variously by both sides — the Maoist leaders and the government.

The Maoist leader alias Prachanda has spoken of a ‘roundtable’ that would include the king’s representative and the political parties. The Maoists and the political parties both want the army under the control of the Parliament and not the monarchy.

The international donor community is divided on when and how to have talks on the insurgency. India, the United States and Britain seem to agree about negotiating from a position of military strength.

Meantime, Nepal’s ‘People’s War’ is all set to become more bloody as a new generation of small arms and helicopters arrive.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.