Collateral damage

The total casualties of the Maoist insurgency surpassed 10,000 in March 2004. At least 7,000 more would be killed before the Peace Accord was signed in November 2006.

Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal has once again cobbled a coalition so that he can be prime minister for a little longer. The fact that the 10-year-long Maoist war that killed 17,000 Nepalis has all but culminated into Dahal’s political dynasty that most recently saw his cousin Narayan Dahal becoming the National Assembly Chair is the greatest tragedy of our times.

Excerpts of the editorial published 20 years ago this week on issue #187 12-18 March 2004:

At the rate we are going, with 30 reported deaths a week on average, it won’t be long before we hit 20,000. Then, 30,000. And then, what? Will the Maoists be any nearer to a republic? Will the Royal Nepali Army be any nearer to wiping out the Maoists? All we will achieve is more Nepali deaths, thousands upon thousands will be orphaned and widowed, millions will be forced to leave their homes. What kind of Maoist utopia commands that sort of a price in blood and misery? The comrades have to ask themselves this question and find an honest answer.

The Maoists gave their revolution an ethnic edge with the declaration of seven autonomous zones in January. It is now in danger of going the way everyone feared: turning a class war into a caste war. The Maoists have enlisted the support of their wavering allies in the east by announcing the Kirant Autonomous Region, and crowned it with a major attack on Bhojpur. The Tambuwan and Tamasaling are blockading highways to strangle the towns.

It is now getting more and more difficult to believe that this revolution is moving along a pre-determined game plan. It looks seriously out of control. Giving the struggle an ethnic tint smacks of desperation, pointing to fatigue at its political centre. In any civil war, hardline militant or ethno-separatist elements gains supremacy when the political part of the struggle erodes or gets sidelined.

For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: nepalitimes.com