Ceasefire
And Democracy In Nepal
By Pratyush Chandra
06 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
Maoists in Nepal have once again demonstrated exemplary resilience by
declaring a unilateral and indefinite ceasefire on April 3, as proof
of their commitment to their understanding with the "democrats".
They ceased all military actions in the Kathmandu Valley considering
"the requests from the seven-party alliance and from the civic
societies".(1) It is too early to assess the exact impact.
During their last year's 4-month long ceasefire in the aftermath of
the "Royal Regression" of February 1, 2005, they achieved
a 12-point agreement with the "democrats", which gravely agonized
the Bush regime. The US ambassador and commanders in the Indian Ocean
became hyperactive in their words and deed. As reports indicate, the
US rulers are eager to renew their military aid to the Big Boy on the
Himalayas, which was solemnly withdrawn after his February naughtiness
last year. For legitimacy, they are seeking a nod from the "parliamentary"
parties. However, it is hard to tell if 'active cooperation' has not
yet already started, we definitely have a history behind us, of Reagan's
Irangate (Iran-Contra affair) and other covert operations in Latin America,
of training and arming fanatic Talibans in Afghanistan.
The spread of the leftist
'menace' in the Global South seems evident, with Peru's forthcoming
elections, the Maoists' ceasefire and the interesting possible comeback
of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, against whom the US nurtured narcoterrorism
and had a scandalous affair with Iran. The US is at loss for words to
characterize this 'scourge', but
has begun to realize its deadly vigor. With regional powers in Latin
America cooperating among themselves and the increasing Chinese economic
support replacing the hollowed and debt-ridden US economy, which survives
as the global hegemon only by displaying its militarist pomp and dollar
seigniorage, the desperation of the US rulers is evident. They are forced
to see the puncturing of the Monroe Doctrine (visualizing the US as
the sole power in the Americas), founded on the basis of the self-confidence
borne out of the domestic political economic prosperity and stability
of the rising US in the 19th century, which ultimately fed on itself,
destroying its own basis.
However, as it is well known,
a devil is most dangerous when it faces its own death. The Bush administration
mentions the threat from the "demagogue" Chavez, the "anti-American
dictator" Castro and the "vicious" Maoists in a single
breath in its National Security Strategy 2006.
It is not surprising that
the US is deploying a Navy Carrier Strike Group "from the U.S.
east coast to the Caribbean Sea to conduct Operation Partnership of
the Americas from early April through late May 2006". Jorge Martin
rightly sees this exercise for "enhancing military-to-military
relationships with regional partner nations, improving operational readiness,
and fostering good will" as "a strong message to Venezuela
and Cuba. The commander of the US Southern Command General Bantz Craddock
has on many occasions attacked the Venezuelan government. The decision
to send this unusually large force to the Caribbean was announced just
two weeks after General Craddok spoke at a US Senate committee hearing
in which he called the Venezuelan government a "destabilizing force"
because of its moves in the international arena, as well as ongoing
efforts to purchase weapons, particularly from China."(2)
On the other side of the
Global South, the Commander of the US Pacific Command visited Nepal
on the anniversary of the last year's February "royal coup".
Since it was an official visit, which could not have happened without
the royalty's willingness to meet with him, we must presume the visit
as marking the 'celebration' of the "coup". Admiral Fallon
called for "national reconciliation" among the "constitutional"
forces - parties and the King - to fight the Maoists, who must "not
be viewed as a legitimate political actor". To attract the Nepalis,
the US embassy time and again advertised this visit with an ostentatious
short introduction for the commander - "as PACOM chief, the Admiral
commands some 300,000 U.S. military personnel in an area reaching from
the west coast of the United States to the east coast of Africa".(3)
After that, every significant statement by the US diplomats on Nepal
has displayed the US' desperation to renew the military help, begging
the parties to break their outrageous alliance with the Maoists. In
fact, one needs to just cursorily go through media reports to see US
Ambassador Moriarty's daily media interactions, which are heavily concentrated
on demonstrating the illegitimacy of this alliance and its dangerous
consequences.
In fact there are "unconfirmed"
reports in South Asian media about the likely resumption of the US arms
supply to Nepal, which has been duly denied by the US embassy. However
one needs to just know that there have been such repeated denials many
times. Amit Baruah of a leading Indian newspaper, The Hindu (September
29, 2004) while reporting about "a private Bulgarian cargo company,
carrying explosives and ammunition to "combat" the Maoists
in Nepal"…sitting at an Indian airport", correctly noted,
"Given the fact that governments do not want to be seen sending
arms and ammunition to other countries, the use of a private charter
aircraft would hardly come as a surprise. An element of "deniability"
is built into such an arrangement, which governments could easily invoke
if and when required."(4)
With the preparation for
the 6-9 April showdown by the democrats and the Maoists' exemplary gesture
by declaring a unilateral ceasefire, the anxiety among the international
players is quite evident. There is definitely a crisis for the US-India
imperialist coalition in South Asia. On the one hand, the economic fundamentalist
China is busy mobilizing whatever space it can get for its own corporate
expansion, unabashedly supplying arms to the King at the wake of the
laziness on the part of the Indian counterpart. (However, India recognizes
the complementary role of China in this regard, as its Foreign Secretary
noted in December 2005, "to the extent that our objectives are
the same [to preserve the monarchy], it is better for us to work together".)
On the other hand, the EU powers, inconsistent and militarily irresolute
as ever, see a good opportunity in the Nepalese "crisis" to
aggravate the anxiety of the US-India coalition by giving support, although
cautious, inconsistent and largely verbal, to the democratic alliance.
Evidently the ideology of
"anti-terrorism" too, which was configured to replace the
Cold War ideologies, of the fight against "red menace", is
in crisis now. It is on the vehicle of the export of "representative
democracy" that Western imperialism under the US has been trying
to homogenize the world under its hegemony. This way they can definitely
terrorize a few regimes, using democracy as a bargaining chip. In Nepal,
even a moderate democrat and, sometimes considered as, a "royalist"
among the democrats, ex-Prime Minister G.P. Koirala understands the
hypocrisy of the West's "democracy" propaganda. In a recent
interview when asked about his reaction to the US ambassador's "warning
that the Maoists might take total control with the aid of the [ongoing]
movement", he categorically replied, "In order to prevent
that from happening, I have always wanted to bring them into the democratic
framework. America and all the others have their contradictions here.
They say that there is no military solution and we need to find a political
solution but why do they fear when we try to bring the Maoists closer
to the political solution?"(5)
But it is here that the crisis
for global imperialism's post-Cold War ideology of "democracy propagation"
lies, with the rise of a 'menace of more democracy' in Latin America
and Nepal. Evidently, the democratic appeal of the major revolutionary
forces in the world today is more powerful with the elimination of the
hegemonist Soviet and Chinese burden. Even the formal bourgeois democratic
institutions are increasingly transformed into red flagships. The revolutionaries,
like in Venezuela, are aware of the inherent contradiction, as the "democratic
representation" in these institutions is founded on the principle
of "popular exclusion", of denying the people to directly
rule themselves. However, remarkable is the self-confidence of the post-Cold
War revolutionaries that enables them to establish "participatory
democratic" practice right in front of the residential palaces
and the representatives' talking shops, 'politically competing' with
them. This competitive vigor of the 'new' democracy was evident in Venezuela
in 2002 during the 2-day-drama around the coup against Chavez, eventually
bringing him back to power. In the Venezuelan practice of co-management
and in the Argentine "asambleas barriales" and "piqueteros'
that openly defy the 'legitimate' political, economic and financial
administration we find the heightening of this popular democratic consciousness
in Latin America.
The same self-confidence
is evident among the Maoists in Nepal, when Prachanda says he is ready
for "political competition". This confidence is derived from
the heightened political consciousness of the Nepalese poor peasantry,
landless, the unemployed, women and the oppressed nationalities/identities,
acquired during the decade-long armed struggle. The Maoists have succeeded
in drawing this excluded majority to the center-stage of the Nepalese
polity - integrating Nepal in real terms. It is the direct democratic
practice of this majority in their daily life that will be decisive
in the political competition that Prachanda talks about. Prachanda and
other Nepalese revolutionaries question themselves, "What were
the negative experiences of the 20th Century in which people who should
have been more powerful and should have had more rights, could not get
them?" And they stress "that - from the lessons of the 20th
Century communist states - we want to move to a new plane in terms of
leadership - where one person doesn't remain the party leader or the
head of state."(6)
Today, the defiant resistance
by Castro's Cuba, the possible comeback of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
and the resolution of the Nepalese 'problem' with an active Maoist participation
re-establish the link between the present "Post-Cold War"
revolutionary democratic movements and the revolutionary movements of
the past. The Maoists' strategy and 'new democratic' program are radically
different from what have traditionally characterized the revolutionary
movements. However, by refusing to follow the universalist dogmatic
voluntarism of radical idealism, they recognize that they are in "a
catastrophic new constellation in which the old co-ordinates proved
useless". They understand that "the idea is not to return
to Lenin [or Mao and others], but to repeat him in the Kierkegaardian
sense: to retrieve the same impulse in today's constellation",
as Zizek would put.(7)
References:
(1) CPN(M): Statement of
21 chaitra (3 April) declaring ceasefire within Valley, International
Nepal Solidarity Network, http://66.116.151.85/?p=2974
(2) Jorge Martin, US launches
major military exercises in the Caribbean as a warning to Venezuela
and Cuba (March30, 2006), http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/
us_military_exercises_venezuela_cuba.htm
(3) PACOM Chief: Reconciliation
key for Nepal's Security http://kathmandu.usembassy.gov/pr_02-02-2006.html
(4) Amit Baruah, "Nepal-bound
plane with U.S. arms in Indian airport", The Hindu (September 29,
2004)
http://www.hindu.com/2004/09/29/stories/2004092906970100.htm
(5) Interview with Girija
Prasad Koirala (April 3, 2006), http://www.kantipuronline.com/interview.php?nid=70205
(6) BBC's Interview with
Prachanda (February 2006), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4707482.stm
(7) Slavoj Zizek, 'Revolution
At The Gates", Verso, 2002