Maoism is the only modern road forward in Nepal

As usual, the United $tates is supporting backward rulers in a Third World country. The New York Times admitted on April 25th that Uncle $am has provided $22 million in military aid to the King of Nepal to combat the People’s War underway there.

King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal’s prime minister—another schemer—19 months ago. The Maoists are demanding a republican form of government. The king has also promised to restore civilian rule in a year while saying that past political leaders in parliament were too corrupt and inept to rule.

Lately the New York Times and BBC have been agitated about what is happening in Nepal. The BBC seemed to threaten openly that England would pull out its support if the king did not modernize the government to be a republic.

Like the bizarre cult around the Dalai Lama in Tibet, the king is now the beneficiary of religious beliefs. The Hindu god Vishnu is supposedly incarnated in Nepal’s king. King Gyanendra came to power because of the June 2001 suicidemassacre of the rest of his family, including the previous king. This massacre is a mystery to the people, as described in previous MIM Notes issues (e.g. MN288).

The New York Times is also talking about the son of the current king. “Crown Prince Paras,” says the Times, “is widely distrusted. A notorious drinker, he was known for carousing in Katmandu nightclubs and for being involved in four fatal hit-and-run accidents, including one that killed a popular singer. In 2000, 500,000 Nepalis signed a petition demanding that he be prosecuted. It was never acted upon.”(1)

The Great Powers are so nervous that the New York Times quoted a senior Indian diplomat saying even the diplomats do not know what King Gyanendra wants.(1) Apparently the imperialists are afraid to kill off King Gyanendra and have the Crown Prince come to power. The imperialists are also afraid the Maoists would advance if the king’s bond with his military is broken. On April 22nd, the king made overtures to other sectors of the ruling class in Nepal embittered by his sacking of the prime minister in 2002. The imperialists hope to see all the semi-feudal and bourgeois elements of Nepal working together against the Maoists, but the economic organization of semi-feudalism and dependent capitalism is never broad enough to support a general alliance of exploiters.

Both the Amerikan and British imperialist press are admitting that their stooges in power in Nepal are in a bind and that it’s hard to see how Nepal can go forward. MIM can supply the answer they lack: the mode of production needs to advance in Nepal. The Maoists are right, and that’s why the political alternatives seem so ludicrous.

For unnamed geopolitical reasons, the British have said that it is impossible for a resolution of the People’s War by violence by either the regime’s side or the people’s side. The U.S. State Department has said the same thing and has also called for a better “human-rights” record for the king and military. This is all just rhetoric disguising the fact that Uncle $am always sides with the most backward and corrupt people that can be found and then attempts to meddle in every Third World country.

We hope that the Greens and others mythologizing exotic Eastern kingdoms come down from their hobby-horses to look at reality in Nepal. The educated people and the peasants seeking land reform do not want the theocracy anymore. The Greens should not be resisting Maoism, supporting Uncle $am and forcing Nepal’s people to live a backward life just to suit the spiritual longings of hippies and grubby yuppies covering for their career professionalism and lack of political thoroughness.

The Greens recently republished the 1957 book by Leopold Kohr titled “The Breakdown of Nations,” which says repeatedly that Nepal is so wonderful because, like many other countries, it is small, and that is why it never gets aid from Washington. The book reappeared in 2001 and by 2002 proved false. Nepal receives military aid from Uncle $am. In the year 2000, I$rael and 29 countries from the ex-Soviet bloc and Third World received $5.2 billion in military aid (3) designed to give Uncle $am lucrative supply contracts and influence with various lackeys. Contrary to the Green political image, most of those countries are very small, with Egypt and the Philippines being the largest.

It is very possible that the imperialists are considering dumping King Gyanendra to find a better stooge. Yet, we at MIM would point out to any lackeys-in-waiting the record of supply and demand for lackeys by U.$. imperialism.

U.$. imperialism bought off Saddam Hussein and then killed off his sons and imprisoned him. The CIA put Panama’s Noriega on payroll and now he sits in U.$. prison. Osama Bin Laden received every military training and resource he could get and now Amerikans chase him around the globe. Countless other Amerikan lackeys have died ignominious deaths. The truth is that Amerika has nothing to offer Nepal. Getting involved with Uncle $am politically and militarily brings nothing but grief to a country.

Notes:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/ 2004/04/25/international/asia/ 25NEPA.html?pagewanted=2
2. http://www.reuters.com/locales/ newsArticle.jsp?type=topNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4911360
3. Statistical Abstract of the United States 2002, p. 792.