Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Internal
Dimensions
by Dr.
Chitra K. Tiwari
Introduction
It is no secret that Nepal, a country
sandwiched between two Asian giants – India and China, is suffering
from the worst political crisis in its history. A constitutional
democracy that was established following the 1990 People’s Movement
appears to be on the verge of collapse due to continued success of
Maoist guerrilla insurgency or "People’s War" that was
launched in February of 1996 by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist).
The Maoist People’s War has become a direct threat and a death-knell
to the government of Nepal.
The CPN-Maoist first fired its salvo
of "People’s War" on February 12, 1996 seeking to destroy
constitutional monarchy and aiming to establish a Maoist people’s
democracy. By the end of December of 2000, the insurgency has taken the
life of an estimated 1600 persons (unofficially the figure goes as high
as 4,000 dead.) There are four categories of people killed in the
process: Maoist guerrillas, police, alleged informers of police, and
innocent civilians. Independent observers say that police has killed
more innocent civilians in fake "encounters" than the Maoist
guerrillas. The police administration is also accused of extra-judicial
killings in captivity and disappearance of persons under custody.
Geopolitics of Insurgency and
Government Policy: The insurgency that began from 3 mid-western mountain
districts of Rolpa, Rukum, and Jajarkot, western district of Gorkha and
an eastern district of Sindhuli has now spread to 68 of Nepal’s 75
districts. According to government’s own admission 32 districts are
believed to be the hardest hit where guerrillas roam freely and organize
open mass meetings. By mid-January 2001, the Maoists have declared the
formation of a provisional revolutionary district governments in Rukum,
Jajarkot, Sallyan and Rolpa districts.
A close study of insurgent activities
in the country show that the most affected area is contiguous and
concentrated in the mid-western region. This is one of the most backward
and least accessible districts of Nepal. The affected areas are all too
close to Kathmandu. Many of the affected areas are spread out along
Terai districts close to India. Nepal government officials have
reportedly filed a complaint with New Delhi that the Maoists are seeking
shelter in India.
The most disturbing situation for the
counter-insurgency planners is that many of the Maoist affected areas
are inhabited by a large number of well trained retired Indian and
British Army Gurkha soldiers. Authorities suspect that some of these
retirees are providing training to Maoist guerrillas.
The Maoist insurgency-hit areas cover
165 of the 205 parliamentary electoral constituencies of Nepal. The
insurgency has directly affected the lives of roughly two-thirds of the
24 million people of Nepal. The state is on the verge of defeat.
The
police operations have failed to control guerrillas. There is a
widespread realization that if the guerrillas continue to expand their
zone of influence at the current speed, they will be able to beat the
Nepali State within a short span of time. Such realization is reflected
in the government’s recent activation of the National Security Council
and its decision to create a para-military force comprising 15,000 men
(to be increased to 25,000-men gradually) with modern sophisticated
weapons. Although the royal army has not been officially ordered against
the guerrillas, the government has decided to establish six new military
bases at battalion level around insurgency hit districts. Twenty-five
district headquarters are now under Royal Nepali Army (RNA) protection.
Another twenty-five district administrators have reportedly sought RNA
protection.
Since the start of insurgency in 1996,
different governments of Nepal have treated the Maoist war as a ‘law
and order’ problem. The government has sought to contain Maoists by
means of police operations code named "Operation Romeo,"
"Kilo Shera Two," "Jungle Search Operation," and
"Search and Destroy." The state has justified authoritarian
policies in the name of suppressing the insurgency, but without
addressing the basic inequalities that plague Nepali society. These
police operations have applied the policy of "encircle and
kill", a policy similar to China’s Chiang Kai-shek’s
"extermination" of communists campaign in 1930s. In the
process of this "encircle and kill" policy the police
operation has in many places actually killed more innocent civilians
than the guerrillas, a fact noted by several human rights organizations
including the Amnesty International.
Insurgents’ Strength: Despite the
killings of hundreds of Maoists, real or imagined, under the policy of
"search and destroy," Maoist insurgency does not appear to be
dying. The insurgency, in fact, has appeared in districts which
otherwise had been considered an area of influence of constitutional
ruling parties. While no one knows exactly how many guerrillas are there
in the jungles of Nepal, yet some experts believe that number of
full-time guerrillas under arms is around 2000 and another 10,000
irregulars or militias armed with homemade guns. In almost all battles
between the police and the Maoist guerrillas, the insurgents have proved
their military superiority. These incidents have shaken the whole
country and has established the fact that Maoist insurgency is a living
reality and that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is an undeniable
political force.
In view of the present day political
uncertainties characterized by competition for office between and among
parties of all shades and sizes, continuing split between and among
parliamentary royal communists, and Nepali Congress’s undeclared
divorce with socialism, the chances for Maoist politics to reign Nepal
appears pretty high. If history is any guide, Nepali communists, no
matter how much divided they may be, have never been totally rejected by
the electorate. In 1994, Unified Marxist & Leninist (UML) got an
opportunity to form the government. The inexperience in ruling the
country, on the one hand, and greed for power, on the other led to not
only the exit from the government but also the vertical division of the
UML party. The vertical split of UML has brought about qualitative as
well as quantitative changes in the political balance of the country.
The split has also helped in raising the centrality of Maoist movement.
In fact, the communist movement has now polarized into Maoist and
non-Maoist blocs. This process of polarization is a good source of power
to Maoists. The failure of other left groups in forming and maintaining
unity has certainly helped Maoists.
Popular Support:
The successive
failures of government’s police operations in Maoist insurgency
clearly shows that the insurgency is taking momentum with substantial
popular support. This is no longer simply a law and order problem.
Why
are the people in rebel areas providing sanctuaries to insurgents? Why
are insurgents finding sanctuaries in areas, which in the past had been
strongholds of constitutional parties? Independent observers argue that
the government suffers from political instability and rampant
corruption. The money allocated for development of interior areas never
reaches there. A large number of villages are totally ignored by
economic planners. There are no schools, no roads, no electricity, and
no medical facilities. At the national level, the educated unemployment
is increasing at geometrical proportions. Close to 100,000 rural youths
failing high school examination every year have neither a job nor a
school to go where they could be kept busy. These unemployed youths, 15
to 18 years in age, are joining the ranks of armed guerrillas. The
Maoists, however, have problems of providing arms to these willing
recruits.
Background of Communist Movement:
Maoist insurgency must be viewed in the light of Nepal’s history of
communist movement. The communist movement in Nepal that first appeared
in 1949 after the formation of Communist Party of Nepal under the
leadership of late Pushpa Lal Shrestha emerged as an intellectual
opposition to Nepali Congress’s policy of compromise. Even during the
days of king’s absolutism Communist movement was unclear in its goals.
A few communist leaders then argued that their main enemy was domestic
feudalism led by the king while others insisted that Nepali Congress
with its support from expansionist India and imperialist America was the
main enemy. As a result, Nepal saw at one moment as many as 19 communist
parties!
The Maoist movement has emerged in the
background of this history of Nepal’s communist movement. The
Naxallite movement of Jhapa in early 1970s, too, had the same
background. The Jhapa movement evaporated in a few years due mainly to
the suppression of Naxaliites in India, youthful inexperience of leaders
expressed in term of middle class extremism, decline of Maoism in China
after Mao’s death in 1976, and lack of Jhapa-type militancy in other
districts of Nepal. The leaders of Jhapa movement gradually took to the
constitutional path and even participated in Panchayat elections as
"pro-people Panchas."
New Realities: The present day Maoist
movement, however, must not be viewed in light of Naxaliite movement of
the early 1970s for several reasons: first, Maoists unlike Jhapali
Naxaliites do not have the advantage of geographical continuity from
India. Second, Maoists do not enjoy the ideological support from Radio
Beijing. So the charges of foreign inspiration is a moot point here.
Third, Maoists have learnt many lessons from the mistakes of Jhapa
uprising. Fourth, the communists of all shades and sizes are now
available in every village of Nepal. Many of them are disillusioned
with the inability of their leaders who have participated in
parliamentary system telling the cadres that there is an alternative to
armed revolution.
That the Maoist insurgency has
survived five-year period and continues to enter into news phases is in
itself a clear indication that the movement is no longer a temporary
phenomenon without social bases. The official approach of viewing Maoist
movement as an activity of individual killing and pure terrorism has not
helped to solve the problem. While it is true that there is middle-class
extremism inside the Maoist movement but it is not the extremism
directed by indiscriminate terrorism. The terrorist acts perpetuated by
insurgents are carefully selective and are limited to the killings of
alleged police spies and informers who are also notorious in the
villages. In the past such extremism used to evaporate within a short
span of time but there is no indication of such evaporation this time
around anywhere near the sight. In fact, it is on the march towards new
stages with each day passing.
New Characteristics: Broadly speaking,
communist movement in Nepal in the past has been left-intellectual
movement. The participating intellectuals in this movement had comprised
of upper caste (Brahmin-Chhetri-Newar-BCN). In other words, past
movements were basically the movements against BCN ruling elite by the
BCN non-ruling elite. That scenario, however, has changed now in view of
the broader participation of persons from other castes particularly the
untouchable castes such as Kami, Sarki, Damai, etc. In the past when
non-ruling BCNs were fighting the ruling BCNs there was always scope for
mediation and compromise due to the network of family relations. No such
network of family relations exists now between BCN elite and guerrillas
coming from untouchable lower castes, which narrows the chances of
mediation and compromise.
Another notable characteristic of
Maoist movement is the degree of women’s participation in guerrilla
ranks. Women’s political participation in the past had been limited to
electoral areas, especially, in voting and occasional candidacy in
elections. It is a big surprise that Nepali women now have joined
guerrilla organization under arms. More than a dozen women have already
given their lives while fighting the police operations. According to an
estimate about 30% of Maoist guerrillas comprise of women. This is
totally a new phenomenon in Nepal, which must not be taken lightly.
Furthermore, more and more persons
from Janajati people (Rai, Limbu, Gurung, Magar, Tamang, etc) are
joining the ranks of Maoist insurgency in the hope that they will be
"emancipated" from the "clutches" of BCN. Although
it is not quite clear whether these Janajatis will remain loyal to
Maoist cause in the aftermath of the success of Maoist people’s war,
suffice it to say here that a peaceful settlement of the problem is no
where near the sight.
Summary and Conclusion: Fighting a
guerrilla war is an expensive proposition for any state. Guerrilla war
has no front lines. Guerrillas operate in the midst of, and often hidden
or protected by, civilian populations. The purpose of guerrilla war is
not to engage an enemy army in direct confrontation, but rather to
harass and punish it so as to gradually limit its operation and
effectively liberate territory from its control. Efforts to combat such
a guerrilla army- counterinsurgency- often include programs to "win
the hearts and minds" of rural populations so that they stop
sheltering the guerrillas. In guerrilla war, there is much territory
that neither side controls; both sides exert military leverage over the
same place at the same time. This makes guerrilla wars extremely painful
for civilian population because the government armed forces fighting
against guerrillas often do not distinguish them from civilians, and so
strike both together.
Nepali strategic planners have failed
to find a way in which people would stop giving sanctuaries to
guerrillas. This could have been done by means of massive economic
development package to people in the early period of insurgency. The
relief package that the government has allocated after so much of
killings has become irrelevant. Counter-insurgency measures require
civil-military coordination in which clean civil administrators are
expected to disburse economic development package. Here lies the
problem. Nepal’s problem is not the Maoist war but an entrenched
coalition of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats that profits from
Maoist war. It is very much likely that the economic relief package
announced to combat insurgency could be yet another opportunity to
corrupt civilian as well as military authorities for embezzlement.
Counter-insurgency measure, if applied and executed by clean hands, will
help minimize the distribution crisis, which in turn, will help to
neutralize popular support to guerrillas. Otherwise, it remains a
protracted problem and there is no way to obstruct Maoist revolution.
The government forces, under the present policies, could win couple of
battles here and there but will never win the war. The best they could
expect is a negotiation for the safe passage with the victorious Maoist
People’s Guerrilla Army in years to come.
20. 01. 2001
(Dr Tiwari is the co-author of
Nepalese Political Behavior published from Denmark in 1994. He was the
contributor to Hoover Institution’s Year Book on International
Communist Affairs in the 1980s. Currently, he works as an independent
consultant on international affairs in Washington, D.C. He can be
reached via e-mail at cktiwari@erols.com)
