Thursday, April 20, 2006
Maoists: Take Kathmandu, Take Nepal! posted by Richard Seymour
Disdaining fortune, with their brandished steel which smoked with bloody revolution...

The Nepalese police have been fighting with protesters and have committed several massacres. The UN has been typically even-handed, blaming both protesters (who threw some stones) and police (who killed unarmed protesters). The protesters for their part, have refused to obey a curfew imposed by the absolutist monarch, and on C4 footage they could be seen trying to drive police out of their neighbourhoods with some handy bricks, some waving red flags with the old hammer and sickle.
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Political parties had been banned in Nepal from 1962 until 1990, when a popular movement forced the state to allow multiparty elections. Elections had been quoshed after the success of the Nepalese Congress Party, a moderate socialist outfit. King Mahendra declared the parliamentary system a failure, and restored semi-feudal political structures that matched the feudal structure of land ownership. The Maoists were sceptical of the 1990 settlement, however: the King was still in power, social and economic inequalities would perpetuate themselves. The promised Land Reforms were in the end not delivered, social injustice persisted and the government viciously repressed movements to enact grassroots land reform. Hence, the guerilla campaign that began in February 1996, and which has led to the Maoists controlling approximately 70% of the country.
The movement that has now hit the streets is much bigger than that which led to the 1990 settlement, and much more militant. The state has long since losts its hegemony, and is rapidly losing its ability to function as a state. This revolution is not, of course, the exclusive property of the Nepalese Communist Party, but their role is undoubtedly central. Their decision to take or abandon the capital, their resolve or compromise, is probably make or break. The last thing Nepal needs is a repeat of the 1990 settlement with the same false promises and sell-outs. Maoists: Take Nepal!