Maoists have upper hand, analysts say

As Nepal catches its collective breath after weeks of turmoil, renewed attention is focusing on the country's Maoist rebels and their decade-long violent insurrection aimed at toppling the monarchy in favour of a communist republic.

In the view of some analysts, the Maoists have the upper hand politically now that King Gyanendra has bowed to popular pressure -- applied in part by their alliance of convenience with mainstream political parties -- and has begun ceding absolutist rule.

Yesterday, the King appointed Girija Prasad Koirala, a feeble and sickly 84-year-old politician, as Prime Minister as the first step to restoring multiparty democracy.

But the real drama involves efforts to somehow draw the Nepal Communist Party (Maoists) away from their past terrorist tactics and into the acceptable democratic sphere. The Maoist insurgency has claimed more than 13,000 lives; the rebels control large areas of rural Nepal through intimidation and brutality.

"They may yet be brought into non-violent mainstream politics, but only if the moderate forces are backed unequivocally by the outside world," says Rhoderick Chalmers, a Kathmandu-based analyst for International Crisis Group. " . . . For the time being, they are in the driver's seat."

Despite the rebels' declaration of a three-month ceasefire, they remain in an "active defensive position."

In an interview with Reuters from one of their southern redoubts yesterday, Comrade Sunil vowed that the rebels would not lay down their weapons until the Royal Nepalese Army is disbanded.

Moreover, Sunil insisted that even a ceremonial role for the monarchy would be unacceptable.

"We do not want a ceremonial monarch, nor a constitutional monarch, we want a republic," said Sunil, a member of the Maoist party's central committee.

Former government minister Padma Ralna Tuladhar told Agence France-Presse that the role of the Maoists in mobilizing thousands of protesters, and the fact that they've stayed clear of violent tactics in recent weeks, gained them respect among Nepalis and opened a door for negotiations.

"It's a historical opportunity for them to have a republican state and they don't want to miss it," he said.

Still, any moves by the Maoists in Nepal's transition from the King's absolutist rule to a stable multiparty political system will be viewed with great suspicion.

"My real concern is that the successor government may end up being dominated by the Maoists," U.S. Ambassador James Moriarty told reporters. "The Maoists would, under the current situation, swing a lot of weight because they have the weapons and the parties do not."

Mr. Chalmers, of International Crisis Group, has argued for the formation of a group consisting of India, the United States, Britain and the United Nations to prepare for a small international ceasefire-monitoring mission as well as a channel of communication with the rebels.

The Maoists, whose rhetoric contains numerous communist references to class warfare and social inequality, say that in their "people's war" they are liberating the population from a caste system, giving women equal rights, and overthrowing an oppressive monarchy.

Critics of the Maoists point to human-rights abuses such as many extrajudicial killings, and also alleged rapes and conscription at gunpoint. The European Union has sharply criticized the Maoists for using children as soldiers.

In the summer of 2004, the rebels abducted hundreds of schoolchildren on the outskirts of Kathmandu for week-long "re-education."

Although no longer considered relevant in China, Mao Zedong's revolutionary-peasant brand of communism still has adherents around the world, mostly in Southeast Asia.

Nicknamed Shampoo "because he brainwashed people," philosophy professor Abimael Guzman founded the rebel movement in the 1970s. It began trying to impose communism on Peru by burning ballot boxes on the eve of democratic elections in 1980.

A government truth commission in 2003 blamed Shining Path for 54 per cent of an estimated 69,280 deaths by rebel groups and the military in the 1980s and 1990s. The group was largely crushed in 1992 with Mr. Guzman's arrest, but several hundred diehards remain holed up in Andean and jungle areas.

The Indian Maoist rebel group was born in the south in 1980 and its network has since spread to 14 other states. Authorities estimate the Naxalites have about 9,300 fighters and have launched more than a dozen assaults on government targets in the past year. They are most active in areas predominated by ethnic minorities who have benefited little from rich mineral resources in their areas.

The rebel group has been fighting for a Maoist state in the Philippines for three decades. Its roots can be traced from the Hukbalahap, a resistance group formed during the Second World War Japanese occupation.

Starting out with 60 fighters and 34 rifles, the NPA quickly spread throughout the Philippine Islands during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and helped in his downfall. Estimated to have about 8,000 fighters, the rebels are blamed for 40,000 deaths.

I just read the new book on Mao. He was responsible for the death of 70 million people. He simply did not care about whether or not people lived or died. He only cared about his own power. He was a chip off the block of Stalin, but actually refined Stalin's despotism. He used food shortages to control the population. He sold food to Russian and other countries to finance his military buildup. Why anyone would follow his "philosophy" is beyond me, since that philosophy calls for changing people into automatons that don't think for themselves and are constantly in fear of their dictator. MAO, may he rot in HELL.

"The Maoists, whose rhetoric contains numerous communist references to class warfare and social inequality, say that in their "people's war" they are liberating the population from a caste system, giving women equal rights, and overthrowing an oppressive monarchy."

This must have been the Rodham Maoists.

Mao Zedong was a very charismatic person. I see the fake in him, but most Chinese living in the mainland then couldn't. The scary thing is, Mao could motivate the average Joes and Janes to commit terrors on behalf of him just by his rhetoric alone, without much real use of the secret police or the military as his instruments of terror. And the ordinary people and his subordinates or colleagues were well and truly in awe of him and approached him as if he were a god.

Mao Zedong was in some sense, a mirror of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was likewise able to actually entice ordinary Germans to support his policies en masse and yes, he did that the Gestapos but it was never really extensive as the Soviet NKVD/KGB in terms of being a vital instrument for state control.

Ping!

Mao Zedong was in some sense, a mirror of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was likewise able to actually entice ordinary Germans to support his policies en masse

The rise and fall of such devils like Hitler and Mao is always dependable on the information their supporters have. Hitler even managed to get elected by hordes of uneducated Germans. It was not the average nazi-voter of 1933 that was evil, it was the nazi-voter that has read "Mein Kampf" or understood the crazy ideology of this idiot from Austria. At first sight Hitlers "values" were "great": Support the millitary, make the economy going, project leadership (he called himself "leader"-Fuehrer) and give the nation pride again after a lost war. The bloody outcome was not predictable for most of his voters in 1933.

It is the same with those contemporary maoists (or islamists - or marxists or whatever) all around the world. Most of them are not "evil" like their leader was. They simply are blinded by false information and false values.

Mao came to power in a period of instability for China. The early 20th Century saw the demise of the Manchu monarchy, the rise of Nationalism and nearly continuous warfare. Mao was charismatic, but his success was due to a combination of factors. First and foremost, he was truly a man without a conscience. Human life meant nothing to him. He even treated his children and all four spouses in a cavalier manner. Second, his rise to power within the Chinese Communist Party was due to his ability to play off his competitors for leadership, by undermining and attacking/threatening/intimidating others to gain power. Third, the Soviet Union was instrumental in financing and supporting Mao during the 30s. Stalin essentially picked Mao (two peas in a pod) as the man in charge, and by keeping Chang's son in Russia, he was able to save Mao from defeat by the Nationalists. Also, George Marshall saved Mao from defeat by the Nationalists, when he came over to mediate between the Nationalists and Reds.

Mao did manipulate events such as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution creating independent instruments of terror. All in all, it is estimated that Mao was responsible for the death of 70 million people.
Mao created the cult of personality, a la Stalin, with his little Red Book and thought control techniques that George Orwell would have been in awe of. Hitler and Stalin were evil in their own right, but Mao was even a step beyond their evil. Hitler had more popular support from Germans, since antisemitism was widespread in Germany and the NAZIs restored Germany to its previous position of power in central Europe after WWI. Hitler's evil was genocidal, Stalin and Mao's evil was more self centered.

I agree that people were lured. But in addition, it seems to me both Hitler and Mao had a kind of charismatic, hynopic power to induce an entire people to commit madness. I once read reports that when the insanity of Hitler's policies were obvious to every German by the end of WWII, a majority of people just kept on because "the Fufher had said so". In fact, people hated the policies but they still loved the Fuhrer. When Hitler died the whole German population seemed to "awake" instantly and the return to sanity seemed to come instantaneously to a majority of people.

It is very similar to China from 1949 to 1976. People were hyponotized by Mao and treated him almost as a god. He didn't need any secret police to force the people to obey him - a vast majority automatically did the deeds for him on their own initiatives. When it was apparent everything was wrong by 1975, not many people dared to voice any dissent. Everyone hated Maoism, but loved Mao, and as a result they kept on the insanity. When Mao died in 1976, support for the Maoist line crumbled quickly among the people and Communist Party at large, and of course Mao's widow and a few others were toppled in a coup, arrested, and tried.

The terrifying part is that people, even many with common sense and intelligence, will rally to leaders like such, and then support all sorts of insane and evil acts on a massive basis - what we call "mass-scale insanity" in Chinese.

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