BUNKOT (Nepal): A year after the breakdown of talks between Maoist rebels and Nepal’s government, violence between the two sides has escalated, raising fears of humanitarian disaster, regional instability and the emergence of a new breeding ground for international terrorism.
Once welcomed by many Nepalis, the rebels have grown increasingly brutal in their “people’s war,” which they say is aimed at toppling the troubled constitutional monarchy of King Gyanendra. According to human rights monitors and victims, they’ve murdered teachers and other perceived enemies — sometimes by beheading — and severely beaten many more, in some cases smashing the legs of suspected informers with the blunt side of an axe.
Government security forces have fought back with harsh measures, targeting not only the Maoists but civilians accused of supporting them, according to a report by Amnesty International.
Of the estimated 7,000 people killed since the Maoists launched their rebellion in 1996, more than 5,100 have died in the last 12 months, about 4,000 at the hands of the army or police, according to unofficial tallies by foreign embassies.
The human toll can be discerned in villages like this one, a cluster of mud-and-stone houses about 60 miles northwest of the capital, Katmandu. Notwithstanding the presence of 800 army troops around the provincial capital of Gorkha, barely 10 miles away by rutted dirt road, the Maoists pay regular visits to demand food and extort “taxes” from teachers and other government employees, people here say.
Though the rebels are active in 72 of Nepal’s 75 administrative districts, according to diplomats, they don’t yet threaten the government, which controls the towns and cities. The Maoists’ leaders — leftist politicians who took their movement underground after concluding that Nepal’s democratic experiment, begun in 1990, had failed — remain sensitive to their image abroad and recently reiterated their desire for talks on a new constitution for Nepal.
“There is every possibility of dialogue,” said Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a leftist politician and human rights activist who served as a mediator during the last round of negotiations. “We are quite confident we can bring them together again.”
Foreign intelligence analysts, meanwhile, have begun to speculate about a breakdown within the movement, as power devolves to armed fighters who see the rebellion as an opportunity for score-settling or personal enrichment.
Although the Maoists have no known state patron to provide arms and supplies, they’ve captured more than 1,000 weapons including antiquated Enfield rifles, light machine guns and Belgian-made automatic rifles — from security forces and finance their activities through bank robbery and extortion, government officials say. They maintain ties to several like-minded groups in India and move freely across the largely unpatrolled border.
Nepal is of limited strategic value to the United States or other powers outside the region. Nevertheless, Bush administration officials are concerned that if the Maoists come within striking distance of power, India could feel compelled to intervene on the side of the government — possibly triggering a response from China.
A more immediate worry is that Nepal could be headed toward the roster of failed states hospitable to terrorism. “We don’t want to see a vacuum or chaos in Nepal that mischief-makers could come and sit in,” one envoy said. “This is a country where a little money goes a long way.”
Washington has pledged $38 million in development aid and $17 million in military training and equipment, including light weaponry and night-vision gear. The military aid has prompted criticism from some human rights activists, who say it will encourage further abuses by security forces and undermine chances for a settlement.
“The Maoists have to be bent toward negotiations, and that’s where security assistance comes in,” said US Ambassador Michael Malinowski, who has likened the rebels’ tactics to those of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. “My argument is to get this fixed now, before it gets any worse.”
After negotiations failed in 2001, the Maoists launched an aggressive new phase of the war, seizing weapons and killing hundreds of security personnel in assaults on remote police outposts and army barracks.
Since then, the all-important tourist industry has collapsed, and the country’s political crisis has deepened following the dissolution of parliament last spring by then-Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was dismissed by Gyanendra in October.
But the Maoists appear to have lost support as a consequence of their attacks on civilians. “I used to think they were doing something good for the country,” said Shyam Sundar, 35, as he lay in a Katmandu hospital with steel rods pinning together his two shattered legs. In November, Maoists used an axe to splinter the bones below his knees after accusing him — falsely, he says — of spying for security forces.
“Initially people thought the Maoists would be shock therapy for this decaying political scene,” said Kapil Shresta of Nepal’s Human Rights Commission. “However, their indulgence of this wanton and brazen violence, and extortion, has really made people very disappointed in the Maoists.”
The Royal Nepal Army is scarcely more popular. Called out 13 months ago, with its experience limited to ceremonial duties and peacekeeping missions abroad, the army has frequently failed to distinguish between friend and foe.
Samari Budha, 27, is one of countless Nepalis caught in the middle. In October, she said, an army patrol entered her village in the Rukum district in pursuit of rebels. In the ensuing gun battle, a bullet hit her in the face, shattering her jaw and leaving her blind in one eye.
Lt. Col. Shiva Ram Kharel, the battalion commander in Gorkha, said he’s ordered his troops not to punish people for giving food to the Maoists.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.