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Subject:
On Bush-Deuba Summit
Fantoos
6/28/2002 2:52:48 AM
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| The press statement of the CPN (M)
On the reference of Bush-Deuba summit
Dear friends,
A rare spectacle of a rendezvous between the PM of the poorest country (Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepal) and the President of the richest country (George W. Bush of the U.S.A) is taking place in Washington on May 7.
Do you know what is the common point of interest for these two polar opposites? Have you ever pondered why the arrogant US rulers, who till the other day could not distinguish between ?Naples? (in Italy) and ?Nepal?, should now offer the coveted hospitality to the poor lackey in the Oval office?
Both these leaders of the exploiting classes of the two countries are haunted by the spectre of the ongoing people?s liberation movement in Nepal and are now confabulating to jointly exorcise this ghost. As co-fighters in the same side of the barricade of the exploited and oppressed of the world we feel, we, too, need to communicate with each other and thwart the evil designs of our common enemies.
As already reported in the media, Deuba is visiting Washington to beg for massive US military and financial assistance to crush the popular people?s democratic movement led by CPN (Maoist) in Nepal. Starting with the first ever visit to Nepal by a US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in January last and culminating in the week long visit of a high level US military delegation in April, the US administration has been systematically building the case for a massive armed intervention and creation of a permanent military base in Nepal (apparently to take on China & India in the long run). Current Deuba visit is, thus, meant to formally initiate a long term US military engagement in Nepal and the Himalayan region with the immediate pretext of extinguishing the ever-raging democratic movement of the Nepalese people, which they slander as ?terrorism?.
But can the heroic rebellion of the impoverished Nepalese masses against class, caste, gender, regional and national oppression under the age-old semi-feudal and semi-colonial dispensation, be branded and brushed aside as mere ?terrorism?? Certainly not. After September 11 it may be fashionable and convenient for all the sundry ruling classes of the world to castigate every dissent and rebellion against their oppressive rule as ?terrorism?. But history has always made a clear distinction between a legitimate ?revolutionary war? with a progressive ideological-political mooring and the lunatic acts of terrorism with a regressive intent. In that sense the progressive democratic political nature of the revolutionary People?s War (PW) led by the CPN (Maoist), which has a country-wide mass following of tens of millions, should have never been in question. Even a mainstraim daily The Times Of India had this to say about it in its editorial comment of January 27, 2002: " Unlike the!
Taliban and the many outfits inspired by Osama Bin Laden, the Maoists of Nepal, for all their violence, represent a progressive protest movement which is neither anti-modern nor exclusivist in ethnic and religious terms. The Maoists are not anti-women, anti-education or anti-development and were till recently, negotiating with elected authorities who have a dismal record of both governance and adherence to democratic norms".
About the question of current compulsive violence in the form of PW against a militarist monarchical state in Nepal, the American people with their own glorious history of war against British colonialism in the 18th century (1776 to be precise) and a civil war against the slave-owners in 1861-65, should have no pacifist illusions. As long as the society and nations get divided into haves and have-nots and the oppressors and the oppressed, nobody can wish away wars of one kind or the other. You can only choose between just and unjust wars. And history will certainly testify that the PW waged by the most oppressed masses of Nepal is a legitimate and just war aimed at ending all wars from the face of the earth.
What is the immediate agenda of this epic fight in Nepal? It should be clear to every keen follower of the events that it is a pure and simple fight between traditional monarchy and modern democracy. The immediate demands of the movement are: formation of an interim government, election to a constituent assembly and institutionalisaton of the republic. As every student of political history would concede these are the common demands of every bourgeois democratic revolution, from Europe to Americas to anywhere.
But is there no elected parliament in Nepal? Therein lies the biggest source of illusion and disinformation to our foreign friends, particularly in America and Europe. Though there is a namesake parliament with occasional ritual of elections as in most of the Third World countries, the real and effective state power is vested in the traditional feudal monarchy. This has been ensured through a King-granted constitution which perpetuates the ?tradit |
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