----- Original Message -----
From: info <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 10:27 PM
Subject: [mobilize-globally] Police Accused of Dirty War against Nepal's Maoist
Guerrillas
Subject:
Police Accused of Dirty War against Nepal's Maoist
Guerrillas
Date:
Thu, 15 Feb 2001 08:44:16 -0500
From:
Louis R Godena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To:
Marxism International
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Police accused of dirty war
against Nepal's Maoist
guerrillas
Executions and atrocities mark
battle against rebels
Luke Harding in Katmandu
Guardian
Monday July 3, 2000
They arrived at Rama Yadav's house at
night, locked his children in the kitchen
and seized his cashbox. Then the Maoist
rebels who have been fighting the
Nepalese state for four years fled to a
nearby village.
The police caught up with them there. Six
rebels unwisely took shelter in a house.
The police set light to it. In the gun
battle that followed all the rebels were
shot dead except one - 17-year-old
Bhagwati Chaudhary.
According to human rights agencies, the
police interrogated her, then shot her.
That summary execution last month is just
the latest example of extra-judicial
killing in Nepal.
Since 1996 the authorities have been
struggling to contain the growing
communist insurgency in the remote
mid-west of what was once a peaceful
Himalayan kingdom. At least 1,500 people
have been killed, two thirds of them by
the Nepalese police.
"We have very clear evidence that
extra-judicial killing is going on,"
Krishna Pahadi of the Human Rights and
Peace Society said. "If the police
suspect someone of being a Maoist they
simply kill them."
The situation has become so grave that
the European Union recently intervened
for the first time, urging the Nepalese
government not to violate human rights
and to begin talks with the Maoist
rebels.
Nepal's hardline prime minister, Girja
Koirala, who came to power in March
advocating a military solution to the
Maoist problem, now appears to have
responded to international pressure.
"There is no alternative to talks," he
said. But his critics say he is not
serious about negotiation.
The Maoists have also been responsible
for a series of outrages. Two months ago
they beheaded a suspected informer,
leaving the victim's head in a tree. Two
weeks ago they killed 21 people,
including 12 policemen, during a gunfight
in the Jarjarkot district of western
Nepal.
They have ruthlessly eliminated
supporters of the ruling Nepali Congress
and other rival parties. About 1.5m of
Nepal's 20m people now live under their
control, in what amounts to a de facto
state run from the hill district of
Rolpa.
Active also in several districts in the
east of Nepal, they have an army of
between 3,000 and 5,000 troops, armed
with homemade guns and primitive bombs.
Successive governments in Katmandu have
been slow to respond to the crisis.
Earlier this month 150 refugees from the
west of Nepal arrived in Katmandu after a
gruelling 26-day trek, seeking government
protection. They say that their MPs are
now too scared to live in the districts
they represent.
"We have become victims of both police
and Maoist guerrillas. In the eyes of
police, we are the supporter of Maoist
and in the eyes of Maoist guerrillas we
are informers to the police," Him Bahadur
Budha, from Rolpa, said.
The insurgency is masterminded by
Prachanda, the general secretary of the
underground Maoist Communist party. His
aim is to overthrow Nepal's
constitutional monarchy and replace it
with a Maoist republic.
The group, which began its uprising in
February 1996, has links with other
revolutionary groups. In Maoist villages,
where the red flag flies, Prachanda has
introduced collective farming. His cadres
collect taxes and impose justice.
The former MP Padma Ratna Tuladhar, who
has been asked by the prime minister to
negotiate with the rebels, said yesterday
that he was "pessimistic" that the
conflict could be swiftly resolved.
Before sitting down to talks, the Maoists
want the police to account for more than
40 supporters who have disappeared while
in custody.
Before his government collapsed under the
pressure of the Maoist problem, the
former prime minister Krishna Bhattarai
said that many of the detainees had been
executed without trial.
The Maoists' paper, Janesh, recently
conceded that some members had grown
corrupt. The movement was going through a
period of "critical self-evaluation", it
said.
But in many areas the Maoists continue to
enjoy popular support. In the village of
Kara, for example, which the police
burned to the ground last year, the son
of a prominent politician kidnapped by
the Maoists has been put to work as a
stonemason.
Pitamber Sharma, of the Integrated Centre
for Mountain Development, said yesterday
that only economic reform could stop the
insurgency.
"In the mountains 60-65% live below the
poverty line. There is no electricity, no
television and no transport," he said. "I
don't see any prospect of the Maoists
taking over Nepal. But if conditions
continue as they do, we are going to
create a situation of protracted civil
war."
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