Washington Post. 1 May 2001. Maoist insurgency gaining strength in Nepal. Excerpts. ZUNGU, Nepal - The road twists through breathtaking vistas of pine and birch groves, waterfalls and terraced fields. In the distance, above the clouds, looms the unmistakable profile of Mount Everest, symbol of Nepal's natural grandeur and lucrative magnet for foreign tourists and adventurers. But at villages along this Himalayan highway in southern Nepal, people point out landmarks of a different kind. Here is where "they" robbed a bank. Here is where "they" attacked a police post. Here is where "they" held a mass meeting or built a footbridge or paraded drunks through the square. Deeper into the forest, at the end of a four-hour climb along a steep rocky trail, lies a remote valley covered with wheat and dotted with farmhouses. Few outsiders venture here, but "they" -- guerrillas from Nepal's rapidly growing Maoist insurgency -- have been making clandestine visits for months, slowly winning over the illiterate, impoverished villagers to their cause. An unprecedented spate of violence, including attacks on police stations in April that killed 70 people, has alarmed authorities and drawn sudden attention to the Maoists' deadly determination. But the people of Zungu know nothing about communist ideology, nor about the revolutionary mission of the insurgents' five-year-old "people's war." They have responded to the guerrillas' combination of violence, moral cleansing and Robin Hood-style service to the poor. "We were afraid of them at first, but now they are welcome at every house," said Karna Kharki, 43, a farmer. "They drove out the evil people who lend money and force us to work for nothing. They are helping us build latrines and repair paths. They punish people for drinking and settle our disputes. The police insult us, but [the Maoists] treat us with respect. Now we have peace here, and we are very satisfied." Although the insurgents control five of Nepal's 75 districts and are active in 50 more, they have avoided the capital, Katmandu, and have not attacked foreign tourists or trekkers, who provide a major source of revenue for the impoverished country of 24 million. Until recently, the government had largely tried to wish away the influence of the Maoists, fumbling several opportunities to negotiate with their leaders. But the bold guerrilla attacks on rural police stations last month have given the problem new urgency. The government, however, is in no condition to take decisive action. Prime Minister Girija Koirala, 78, is embroiled in charges of corruption and is fighting for his political survival. The parliament has been essentially shut down for three months by an opposition boycott, and Katmandu was rocked last month by violent street protests, with opposition activists demanding Koirala's resignation and the prime minister defiantly refusing. "This government is corrupt and it is not responding to the people's demands. We will continue to mobilize people in the streets until Koirala resigns," vowed Mhadav Nepal, leader of the mainstream opposition Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). "We believe in democracy and we are against violence. But if the government is not effective, the ultra-left politics of the jungle will continue to attract people who are fed up." [N.B.] Indeed, in a recent opinion poll by the Nepali Times magazine, two-thirds of respondents said they feared democracy was in danger. But 81 percent said the threat came from mainstream political parties. ...[L]ess than 8 percent of Nepalis polled said the Maoists posed a threat to democracy, and a large majority said they believe the government should negotiate with the Maoists rather than send the armed forces against them. ... The Maoists have... earned gratitude among some rural Nepalis for their campaign against immorality and injustice, and even among Katmandu's elite there is widespread sympathy for their demands, which range from ending ethnic discrimination to instituting land reforms to breaking unpopular treaties with next-door India. "Calling for justice, fair treatment, ending corruption, what is the harm in that?" said Ramesh Nath Pandey, a veteran politician from Koirala's party who recently met with Maoist leaders in an attempt to reopen negotiations. "They have proved they are a political force, and we have to sit down with them," he said. "To use military force would be a tremendous mistake. This country cannot afford a civil war." ... The Maoists' appeal to some Nepalis is not surprising. While communist ideology is discredited in most of the world, it is part of mainstream politics in Nepal, where most parties are left of center. Nepal's Maoist movement is also homegrown. The armed insurgency started in 1996, when the country's legal Maoist party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), abandoned parliament and declared a "people's war" against the state. Once it was the third-largest party in parliament; some of its top ideologues are familiar national figures. One is Baburam Bhattarai, a thin and soft-spoken man in his late forties who holds a doctorate from India's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University and was close to many Nepali intellectuals before he went underground in 1996. "We were good friends once. We worked together in human rights, although we disagreed on most issues," said Kapil Shrestha, a human rights activist who broke with Bhattarai after he refused to condemn the Chinese attack on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989. "He is idealistic and well-mannered, though not very stable, and he is one of the two or three most brilliant people in Nepal." Shrestha spent nine days recently on a tour of several districts in western Nepal, where the Maoists have set up parallel "people's governments," driving out most vestiges of state authority and private enterprise. He said he met teenage guerrillas carrying old police rifles and local Maoist commanders who had conducted rigid moral cleansing operations but seemed "blank" when asked about their vision for Nepal's future. The wide-ranging aims of the movement are spelled out clearly in several semi-clandestine Maoist newspapers and magazines published in Katmandu. They publish long doctrinaire essays by underground Maoist leaders. "We believe in the revolution, in total change," said Krishna Sen, a bespectacled man of 45 who edits one such newspaper and just spent two years in prison for Maoist activities. "The parliamentary system is capitalist, and the other left parties" are not true communists, he said. He insisted that European and Russian forms of communism are not dead, "only politically defeated. This is a long process, a long war." Sen proudly described the widening scope of Maoist control in the countryside. He would not give the number of armed insurgents -- which officials in Katmandu estimate at 5,000 -- but he said that 2 million Nepalis are "directly involved" in the movement. While acknowledging that the insurgency has used violence to punish its enemies, he said such methods are being curbed because they "make the local communities sad." But he also blamed Nepali police for abusing and killing "thousands of innocent people," and he added that "Maoists also die in battle. We are not afraid of the army." ...........................
