Posted on 13-5-2003

Nepal - Behind The Mountain

For the past seven years the country of Nepal has been wracked by an
insurgent "People's War ." The war was initiated in February 1996 in the
communist-dominated Rolpa and Rukum districts in far western Nepal when the
dominant landlord forces used police force to thwart the communists from
participating in parliamentary and local elections. Building on the
desperate frustration borne of decades of violence against Nepal's mostly
rural population in the name of "development," the war has quickly spread
throughout Nepal with widespread popular support in the countryside as well
as strong sympathies from urban populations frustrated with the corruption,
greed, and lack of vision of the urban-based client development-regime.
Starting in the "base areas" carved out in the west, the insurgents have
extended their control to all the countryside, leaving just major urban
areas and district headquarters in military control of the state.

>From this position of strength, the insurgents this last month opened up
peace negotiations with the state with the aim of bringing about major
reforms and true democratization of the state. Even as these negotiations
are being initiated, however, the US government has made statements and
taken actions that are undermining the possibility of reconciliation. These
and other issues are discussed by Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, a central
committee member of the Communist Party (Maoist), spokesman, and chief
negotiator for the insurgents in an <A interview in Kathmandu.

Full transcript at
http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4798&group=webcast