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Oct 23, 2008

Prachanda's multiparty pickle
By Dhruba Adhikary

KATHMANDU - United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon's visit to Nepal, scheduled for the end of the month, might give Prime Minister Prachanda an enhanced sense of the international acceptability of the interim coalition government he has been heading since mid-August.

Ban's arrival, however, comes amid widespread skepticism within the country about Maoists' sincerity to remain committed to multiparty democracy. Such doubts have presented a formidable challenge to Prachanda's leadership.

While this challenge does not pose any immediate threat to the Prachanda-led government, conflicting ideas and arguments

emanating from some of his senior comrades have made even the credulous public suspicious of the true intentions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

A strong case is being made through media debate that a revolutionary party cannot be expected to be satisfied until the country becomes a "people's republic". Abolishing the monarchy and replacing it with a republican democracy is definitely a step forward, says senior Maoist leader Mohan Baidya, also known as "Kiran" and widely considered to be Prachanda's mentor.

"Our objective is to establish a people's republic which is yet to be accomplished," a newspaper quoted him as saying. Kiran is said to belong to a group that is opposed to softening the position held throughout the insurgency years. Meanwhile, Baburam Bhattarai, number two in the party hierarchy, is said to be emerging as the leader of a faction in favor of political flexibility.

Prachanda appears to be in the middle, and there is speculation that he intends to give communism a Nepali look suitable to the 21st century. "It can't be the photocopy of Mao's Maoism," he told Janadisha newspaper on Friday, in reference to China's Mao Zedong.

"We have walked into the era of competitive politics and have embarked on the project of federal structure," Prachanda added. "Mao's scheme was based on a unitary structure".

The main reason behind recent public outcry is that the Maoists could impose one-party rule, drawing inspiration from countries like China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea or Zimbabwe. Prachanda believes his visits to India and the United States (at the UN in New York) have helped to dispel doubts in the West that because of their background of violence, the Maoists would try to place Nepal under a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Prachanda has emphasized that all the Maoists are opposed to is the parliamentary form of democracy. His contention is that since the parliamentary format has failed to address people's woes in countries like India and Britain, it is not worthwhile to retain in Nepal. He once praised the French model in which the executive branch - or presidency - conducts the show. He has not mentioned the American model, perhaps because it would amount to appeasing the world's imperialist power.

It is unclear whether Prachanda's initiatives have actually helped remove persisting fears about Maoist intentions. On the domestic front, the party leadership seems to have mobilized intellectual support to convince the public that the system the Maoists want to establish will not be one-party rule.

One such intellectual, Professor Manik Lal Shrestha, argued in an article printed in the official Gorakhapatra newspaper on Sunday that "people's democracies" prevalent in countries like China, Korea, Laos and Vietnam are not actually single-party dispensations. In other words, Shrestha does not see any harm in the Maoists taking Nepal in that direction.

Quoting from Maoist literature, Shrestha has advanced a contention that, like China, Nepal's new people's democracy would have to be based on cooperation rather than having opposition parties.

Similarly, the federal structure Prachanda has been advocating has been a controversial issue from the beginning. And the point of contention is centered around a scheme to create federal units on the basis of ethnicity. Since the country is known for its mixed population and diversity, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to relocate particular ethnic groups from one region to another.

As rebels in the past decade, Maoists followed the slogan of making the residents of the southern Terai plains free from the alleged exploitation of hill-dwellers. The Maoist leadership realizes that it can't backtrack from its public pledge - but others see this whole idea as a suicide mission.

Narayanman Bijukchhe, president of a party of workers and peasants, has described a Maoist plan to create a province for the Newar ethnic and linguist group within the Kathmandu valley as "fatal". (The valley has three of the 75 administrative districts in Nepal.)

Jhalanath Khanal, general secretary of the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party, a rival of the Maoists, accuses the Maoist leadership of promoting a "devastating concept", namely that of transforming the entire southern Terai flatlands into one federal unit. Terai shares borders with some Indian states including West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

And the demand from Terai has already encouraged Nepal's northern Himalayan belt, bordering China's Tibet, to seek autonomy. Analysts say excessive zeal for self-determination might lead to the breakup of the country.

Which among the nine communist parties currently in existence is the real party of communists? Answers differ, depending on a variety of claims. Except the party of workers and peasants, others have their names qualified with additional tags in parenthesis, such as Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), Communist Party of Nepal ( Unity Center ) and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist).

Some of the Maoist leaders claim that since they are the largest party among the communists they can afford to give up the "Maoist" tag.

Senior leader "Kiran", however, is against this proposition. "It is our identity, not a tail or a tag," he told Nayaa Patrikaa newspaper on Tuesday. He is more concerned about the possible negative influence of greater flexibility, replacing revolutionary determination. Rightist opportunism, he fears, can dilute the entire process Maoists faithfully launched in 1996.

The other major challenge confronting the Maoist leadership is the issue of integrating Maoist soldiers, numbering nearly 20,000, into the national Nepal Army.

The army leadership initially resisted the idea of inducting politically indoctrinated cadre into the national military, but with the formation of the Maoist government the army's voice has lost its sting. The new defense minister, Rambahadur Thapa or "Badal", seems conspicuously determined to create a "national army" through the combination of the two existing armies.

But he faced a direct confrontation on Monday, when two of the ministers from the coalition publicly opposed the idea of integration, saying that if the Maoist forces joined the national army, Nepal would lose its entire territory in the southern flatlands of Terai. Interestingly, this voice of dissent from Terai became much louder after Rambahadur Thapa returned from an official visit of China.

Ian Martin, who heads the UN's special mission in Nepal, also believes that the ongoing peace process cannot be complete as long as two separate armies exist. The government's plan to set up a special committee to sort out the thorny question has yet to be implemented.

Prachanda appears to be in a dilemma: he knows he cannot ignore the plight of soldiers who have been sheltered in UN-monitored camps for months. Media reports from various cantonment sites indicate growing resentment against the political leadership. One report referred to preparations for an open revolt against Prachanda.

He is under pressure to act fast and decisively. He can persuade the Nepal army chief, General Rookmangud Katawal, and some senior officers to agree for integration without any pre-conditions. But will the junior officers, who have fought Maoists in the field, obey their commanders without question?

In an emerging scenario, disgruntled army officers may create a totally different situation, the Drishti newspaper reported on Tuesday quoting an unnamed senior army officer.

If an interim constitution can be defied by political parties, it can also be ignored by non-political actors.

Dhruba Adhikary, a former head of the Nepal Press Institute, is a Kathmandu-based journalist.

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