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Kathmandu Monday June 18, 2001 Ashadh 04, 2058.
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Resume talks
The underground Maoists are back in the headlines. They are
already hampering the national census in the western hills. And now they have just
attacked the police beat office and the area police office at Bhanuchowk in Dharan. They
set off three socket bombs at the area police office Saturday night leaving two policemen
injured including one whose condition is said to be serious. Earlier, the Maoists had set
off a molotov cocktail at the police beat office, destroying the structure. Following the
incident, the situation in Dharan bazar was tense. From the sketchy details available, the
beat office is not used by the police and the Maoists may have targetted it to divert
attention before moving in on the area police office which was their real target. It
rather conforms to the Maoist dictum on making a noise in the east to attack in the west.
In a broader sense the Dharan attack also tends to conform to another bit of classic
Maoist strategy, that of consolidating the hold on the villages and then moving in on the
towns. If that is in fact true, it could mark a new phase in the Maoist people’s war,
with the conflict now being brought home to the hitherto relative safety of the urban
areas.
The Maoist activity, coming after the relative calm of the
past week or so coinciding with the palace tragedy and its aftermath, could mark a new
phase in another sense also. The government has been putting all its eggs in one basket by
targetting its Integrated Security and Development Package on the districts of the mid
western region most affected by the insurgency. All along this has run the risk of the
Maoists simply switching their people’s war from one part of the country to another
and leaving the government’s strategic planning in considerable disarray. The attack
in Dharan reminds us again of this possibility. We should be cautious about the likely
frustrations of trying to fight a guerrilla war with conventional armed forces. Not that
it has not been done, by the British in Malaya in the 1950s and by the Americans in
Bolivia in the 60s. Both these cases involved external forces on a major scale. This is
not something that Nepal can contemplate either financially or politically. The more so
since there are indications that the Maoists have been cultivating ties with the Maoist
movement in parts of India thereby possibly further strengthening their hand.
Initiation of talks with the Maoists in right earnest is the
only real alternative, and has been so all along. We can no longer afford not to talk. Now
that the country is gradually coming to terms with the tragedy that struck our royal
family, it is time to pick up the threads of the negotiations. If this requires some sort
of consensus among the major parties in order to bring them all on board, that should be
sought also. Above all it means that the issue should be kept aloof from politics to the
full extent possible. It is too important for the nation to be subjected to political
party interests.
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