Nepal : The Americans are leaving,

State Department stays on

Tapan Bose, Kathmandu , 27 April 2006

The other day a friend told me that the US Embassy has ordered all American citizens, except those providing essential service to the US Embassy to leave Nepal immediately. A large number of Americans were seen at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport trying to catch flights to different destinations, before they got contaminated by a disease called "revolution". This gives me a good feeling.

Why? Because it shows that the Nepali people have successfully resisted the USA 's attempts to hijack, manipulate and subvert the mass movement. The USA tried its best and I am sure that they are going to try again. Richard Boucher the Assistant Secretary of State is due in Kathmandu on May 2, 2006. Over the past five years the State Department sent "scholars", "security advisers" and "counter insurgency experts" to train and assist the Nepali academics, researchers, NGO activists in the “art and science” of conflict resolution and to strengthen local stakeholders for peace. They also trained the Royal Nepal Army officials in developing modern security strategies and counter-insurgency - in plain words killing the Maoists more effectively.

The Ambassador of the United States never tired of comparing the Nepali Maoists with the Khmer Rogue. American experts' put out scholarly discourses, which compared Nepal with that of Peru and Cambodia . US agencies funded Nepali scholars to study techniques of "conflict analysis", "conflict resolution" and conflict transformation". Seminars were organised where doomsday scenarios were created and discussed. The Maoists were shown as a greedy lot, hungry for power, using the poor and exploiting the emotions of women and discriminated Indigenous peoples and the Dalits. The Royal Nepal Army was supplied with 20,000 M-16 rifles from Washington, 20,000 Insas rifles from Delhi, 100 helicopters from London and 30,000 Minimax guns from Belgium. At the end of the day, all the State Department experts, all the Generals of Pentagon and the other friendly governments could not spot the people of Nepal .

The USA has never experienced a revolution of the kind that is taking place in Nepal . The great American Revolution was not led by the hungry and exploited masses. This happened in France , in Russia , in China and in Cuba . It is difficult to predict when the oppressed masses would overcome their fear of the oppressor. As history is witness, they do. And, when they do overcome their fear, they become a virtually unstoppable force. They change history. Remember Spartacus and the slaves.

For nearly 200 years, the Shah and Rana rulers of Nepal held the people to ransom. The Hindu ruler was propped up as the embodiment of god. Ordinary Nepalis were not even allowed to look at his face. They kept up the most archaic Hindu customs to hold the people down.

Through alliance with the British colonial masters of India and later with the rulers of independent India , Britain and the USA they perpetrated their rule. Their main business was to supply poor Nepali men as mercenaries to foreign governments as cheap cannon fodder. On each Nepali mercenary the rulers collected commission. The agreement between Nepal 's king and the British allowed the British to pay the Nepali Gurkhas in British army a paltry sum as they salary and pensions ranging from five to fifteen pounds sterling per month for a lifetime of service in her majesty's government. The Royal Nepal Army even today deducts a hefty sum from the compensation received by the Nepali peacekeepers in the employment of the UNO.

After the USA began its global war on terror and President Bush "privatised" security services, hundreds of Nepalis were recruited into so-called "ancillary" service of security companies like Group Four, Executive Solutions, Gurkha International and Blackwater Inc. As the dead bodies of Nepali workers started returning from Iraq , Ache and Afghanistan , it became clear what this so-called ancillary service really was. Even today, American recruited Gurkha guards protect Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. The King of Brunei does not trust any one but Gurkhas for his personal safety.

In Nepal it is an old-fashioned revolution led by the poor oppressed masses. The people are united in their struggle against the king, the symbol of oppression. It is not an ethnic strife or a religious or a sectarian war. Those are the wars that the State Department knows and likes. They have hordes of experts and advisers who are waiting in various "think tanks" and universities to be sent to all places where such conflicts/wars are raging. But a revolution of the kind that is unfolding in Nepal is not something that the USA knows how to deal with.

Now the king has revived the House of Representatives, which he dissolved on the advice of Mr. Sher Bahadur Deuba in October 2002. Mr. Deuba had already lost the support of the majority in the house when he advised the king. The king was happy to dissolve the house as the house was opposed to the extension of the state of emergency. The house elected in May 1999 has already completed its term of five years under the 1990 constitution. Yet the leaders of the seven parties were adamant in their demand for the revival of this house. Why one might ask. What was the need to revive a dead house which could only be done by the king, whom the people hated? There are no obvious answers.

The Maoists have been insisting that the seven party alliance should hold a national convention and declare the formation of a national government as an interim measure. The seven party alliance did not agree. Seems they were afraid that neighbouring and other governments might not recognize their government. They were also afraid that they would be seen as having come under the influence Maoists, who were branded as "terrorist" by USA and India . The US Ambassador has been pushing the leaders of the seven parties to renounce the 12 point agreement with the Maoist. But this did not happen.

On the nineteenth day of the mass movement the king and the Royal Nepal Army were faced with the prospect of a crowd of five million people surrounding the capital city of Kathmandu . I am told, as the palace rats started to desert the sinking royal ship, the king finally lost his nerve. He was ready to compromise with the leaders of the seven parties. There are credible reports that he sent his emissary to the head of the UNDP in Nepal to intervene in the "backdoor" negotiations with the leaders of the seven party alliance leaders in crafting the proclamation that the king read out in his midnight proclamation of April 24, 2006. This was "accepted" by the leaders of the seven parties.

What Nepalis want is a new political system – an inclusive democracy, freedom from exploitation and discrimination, respect for human rights and a new society. The women of Nepal , who were out in large numbers want equal status in society. The marginalised communities, the indigenous people (janajatis), the Dalits, Muslims and Madhesis want an end to discrimination. They want a decentralised, federal system of governance which will guarantee their "autonomy" and their "culture, language and identity". The people want the new government to guarantee their right to work, right to housing, right to water, health and education.

The leaders of the seven parties will soon return to the House of Representatives. They are now preparing to form an interim government. They have also made it clear that they will not deviate from their commitment to holding elections for a constituent assembly. Several mass organisations including trade unions, teacher's associations, organisations of Janajatis and Dalits have announced that they would encircle Singha Darbar, where the parliamentarian would meet on Friday (April 28).

The State Department has said that the king should continue to be the "ceremonial head of state". The majority of the people of Nepal want an end to monarchy. They want the king and his family to leave. They see the king as the symbol of the old system which perpetrated the control of the feudal classes and sold the country's economic and political independence to foreign governments and multinational companies for personal gain. Is this the end of monarchy and the beginning of a new era? Will the people of Nepal defeat the new imperialists? We are yet to see.