Tuesday, September 27, 2005
COMMUNIST CHINA BACKS AN ABSOLUTE MONARCHY FIGHTING A MAOIST INSURGENCY
Curzon of Coming Anarchy had a post on Nepal's Maoist rebels' practice of kidnapping, indoctrinating and forcing Nepalese students to perform slave labor. A post that attracted the unhappy attention of a Maoist sympathizer who tried to whitewash rebel conduct.
The Maoist rebellion in Nepal began in 1996 when the Communist Party began an armed struggle to overthrow the then Constitutional monarchy whose democratically elected government was dominated by other leftist parties who waged, at best, a lukewarm fight against the Maoists who now control 70-80 % of Nepal. The conflict gained international notoriety when King Gyanendra attempted a Fujimori-style " autogolpe"; most likely for the same reasons that Alberto Fujimori once did in Peru during the war with the Maoist Shining Path - a suspicion that democratic Leftists in the government were covertly aiding and or obstructing the fight against the Communist insurgency.
The King, despite unconstrained brutality, has poven to be a much less effective counterinsurgency autocrat than Fujimori who quickly broke the back of the Shining Path and captured its secretive leader, Professor Abimael Guzman. Ironically, Communist China has stepped in to help the floundering King crush the Maoist rebels and win Nepal away from India's sphere of influence. A brief from PINR explains:
"The crisis precipitated by Gyanendra's February seizure of absolute power threw the parliamentary parties into the position of either attempting to mount resistance in order to recoup their losses or accepting defeat. Particularly after the king revoked the state of emergency in April, they chose the former, pursuing a three-pronged campaign to delegitimize his rule and render him unable to govern. Forming the same kind of coalition that had forced the institution of a parliamentary system in 1989, they subsumed their rivalries under a common program of restoring democracy.
As Gyanendra remained unyielding, the parliamentary parties radicalized their positions. The crisis ratcheted up to a higher level, when, in late August, the Nepali Congress Party (N.C.P.) -- the largest parliamentary grouping, which has close ties to New Delhi -- announced that it had decided to delete the goal of achieving a constitutional monarchy from its constitution. The Communist Party of Nepal (U.M.L.), the second biggest grouping, had already abandoned constitutional monarchy for a "democratic republic."
In response to the parliamentary parties' break with the monarchy, the Maoist insurgency announced a three-month cease fire and has begun releasing some of its R.N.A. prisoners, although Nepalese media report that it continues to carry out abductions of school teachers and students for "re-education." Registering a shift in the balance of power, the seven-party parliamentary coalition announced on September 16 that it would form a team to negotiate independently with the Maoists. The coalition made it clear that talks were premised on the insurgency ending violence against civilians and that the Maoists would not be permitted to join the coalition unless they laid down their arms."
If the parliamentary parties assume they can control the Maoists in a coalition for a democratic revolution then they are blindly treading the same path as Alexander Kerenskii, and all the democrats or liberals in places like Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam, Nicaragua, who saw in Communist radicals a tiger they could ride to power and then tame like a pet.
They will not get more democracy from these rebels than they will from the King. The tiger will devour them. ¶ 6:26 PM
Curzon of Coming Anarchy had a post on Nepal's Maoist rebels' practice of kidnapping, indoctrinating and forcing Nepalese students to perform slave labor. A post that attracted the unhappy attention of a Maoist sympathizer who tried to whitewash rebel conduct.
The Maoist rebellion in Nepal began in 1996 when the Communist Party began an armed struggle to overthrow the then Constitutional monarchy whose democratically elected government was dominated by other leftist parties who waged, at best, a lukewarm fight against the Maoists who now control 70-80 % of Nepal. The conflict gained international notoriety when King Gyanendra attempted a Fujimori-style " autogolpe"; most likely for the same reasons that Alberto Fujimori once did in Peru during the war with the Maoist Shining Path - a suspicion that democratic Leftists in the government were covertly aiding and or obstructing the fight against the Communist insurgency.
The King, despite unconstrained brutality, has poven to be a much less effective counterinsurgency autocrat than Fujimori who quickly broke the back of the Shining Path and captured its secretive leader, Professor Abimael Guzman. Ironically, Communist China has stepped in to help the floundering King crush the Maoist rebels and win Nepal away from India's sphere of influence. A brief from PINR explains:
"The crisis precipitated by Gyanendra's February seizure of absolute power threw the parliamentary parties into the position of either attempting to mount resistance in order to recoup their losses or accepting defeat. Particularly after the king revoked the state of emergency in April, they chose the former, pursuing a three-pronged campaign to delegitimize his rule and render him unable to govern. Forming the same kind of coalition that had forced the institution of a parliamentary system in 1989, they subsumed their rivalries under a common program of restoring democracy.
As Gyanendra remained unyielding, the parliamentary parties radicalized their positions. The crisis ratcheted up to a higher level, when, in late August, the Nepali Congress Party (N.C.P.) -- the largest parliamentary grouping, which has close ties to New Delhi -- announced that it had decided to delete the goal of achieving a constitutional monarchy from its constitution. The Communist Party of Nepal (U.M.L.), the second biggest grouping, had already abandoned constitutional monarchy for a "democratic republic."
In response to the parliamentary parties' break with the monarchy, the Maoist insurgency announced a three-month cease fire and has begun releasing some of its R.N.A. prisoners, although Nepalese media report that it continues to carry out abductions of school teachers and students for "re-education." Registering a shift in the balance of power, the seven-party parliamentary coalition announced on September 16 that it would form a team to negotiate independently with the Maoists. The coalition made it clear that talks were premised on the insurgency ending violence against civilians and that the Maoists would not be permitted to join the coalition unless they laid down their arms."
If the parliamentary parties assume they can control the Maoists in a coalition for a democratic revolution then they are blindly treading the same path as Alexander Kerenskii, and all the democrats or liberals in places like Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam, Nicaragua, who saw in Communist radicals a tiger they could ride to power and then tame like a pet.
They will not get more democracy from these rebels than they will from the King. The tiger will devour them. ¶ 6:26 PM
