Sanjay Upadhya: SOS in the Himalayas

Nearly three months after King Gyanendra dismissed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s multiparty government and assumed full political powers, international discussions continue to be narrowly framed around the need to restore democracy.

A nine-year-old Maoist insurgency aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a one-party communist state has claimed over 11,000 lives and shows few signs of abating. The common people are caught in the crossfire between Maoist rebels and government forces.

Funding the 80,000-strong military has led to cutbacks on development spending. Rebel attacks on roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and communication facilities have hit the very people they claim to be fighting for. The tourism industry, once the backbone of the economy, lays devastated. International development agencies, accusing the Maoist rebels of extortion, have threatened to pull out of the kingdom. The United Nations has warned that the insurgency is fuelling the cultivation and trade of narcotics.

International media coverage of the state of emergency, detention of political leaders and disruptions of communications links ignores the threat of Nepal becoming a failed state, with grave consequences beyond its borders. It is time for concerted international action to prevent that from happening.

The Bush administration, which has provided some $20 million in military aid to the Nepalese government’s anti-insurgency campaign, has expressed serious concern over the king’s action. The European Union and India -- Nepal’s influential neighbor to the south -- have been stronger in their condemnation of the royal action. Significantly, China, Nepal’s neighbor to the north, has described the event as an internal matter.

The Maoist insurgency gained strength in the 1990s as the Nepalese people began exercising unprecedented political freedoms. Democracy, to be sure, allowed people of all persuasions to voice their grievances against their leaders. It also provided an unprecedented opportunity for the newly legalized political parties to begin addressing them. Successive elected governments, however, were locked in a perpetual power struggle. Worse, the state’s crackdown on the rebels bolstered public sympathy for them the rural hinterland.

The issues raised by the rebels -- endemic poverty, caste-based discrimination, lack of economic opportunities – are genuine. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual per capita income of about $250 and a poverty rate of 42 percent, according to the World Bank. Ninety percent of the population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture. Three upper-caste groups -- Bahun, Chetri, and Newar -- continue to dominate education and employment opportunities. Many of the Maoist recruits come from the lower castes, and a large number of them are women.

Clearly, there can be no military solution to the Maoist insurgency. Two rounds of peace talks have failed and the rebels have proposed fresh negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations. The royal government is wary of the insurgents exploiting a truce to regroup and rearm. The United States, which shares those apprehensions, has placed the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), as the rebels are formally known, on the State Department terrorism watch list. Washington has been training and equipping the Nepalese army in the hope of forcing the rebels to the negotiating table. Britain, which has long-standing links with rural Nepal, from where it recruits Gurkha soldiers, has laid greater emphasis on development.

Of greater consequence are the positions taken by Nepal’s immediate neighbors. Although they are ideologically inspired by the teachings of Mao Zedong, there is little evidence linking the Maoists with China. The rebels, for their part, have assailed China’s communist leadership for having strayed from the core tenets of Maoism. China, anxious to avoid Nepal from becoming a launching pad for pro-Tibetan groups, has traditionally viewed the monarchy as the source of stability. In recent months, the official Chinese media have voiced concern over Nepal becoming a base for Islamic separatists active in the country's north-western Xinjiang autonomous region.

Nepal’s Maoists enjoy close ties with radical groups in India. Nepal’s open southern border has allowed the rebels extensive freedom of movement. Media reports in India speak of links between Nepalese Maoists and major Indian insurgent groups in at least nine states. In recent months, New Delhi has cracked down on the insurgents, handing over key rebel leaders to Nepal.

King Gyanendra has taken a huge risk by assuming full political control. Pledging his commitment to multiparty democracy, the monarch has voiced his desire to play the role of a “constructive monarch.” While the concept remains nebulous, it is clear he is dissatisfied with the endlessly bickering political parties and wants a greater say in day-to-day political affairs. The mainstream parties, which emerged from a three-decade ban in 1990, are infuriated by king’s political ambitions. Although the major parties say they are still committed to keeping Nepal a constitutional monarchy, they have not ruled out possible cooperation with the Maoists.

The Maoists have been forthright about their intentions. Rebel leader Prachanda, who has rarely been seen in public, has said the “people’s war” would not be discarded until the final construction of communism. The Maoists view American support for the monarchy as a key obstacle to their goal. The rebels, who have claimed responsibility for murdering two US Embassy guards, regularly spew anti-US rhetoric. Prachanda says he hopes to turn Nepal into “a base area of world revolution, internationalist in content and national in form.” Rebel statements in the Nepalese media have proposed the creation of a common front with anti-US elements around the world.

Admittedly, the international community faces difficult choices in Nepal. Amid the reversal of the democratic process, the temptation to isolate the royal regime is natural. The risk inherent in such a course of action is an acceleration of Nepal’s transformation into a failed state, prompting either or both of its giant nuclear-armed neighbors to intervene. The priority for the United States, China, India, Britain and other concerned governments must be engagement with the monarchy, which retains sufficient influence and legitimacy to play a vital unifying role in multiethnic and multilingual Nepal.

Sanjay Upadhya is a Nepalese journalist currently based in the United States.

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