National 4 (Spotlight Weekly)

"Support Provided By The Various Outside Powers Doesn't Pose Theat To Any Nepal's Neighbors"

David Scott Palmer, is the professor of International Relations and Political Science, at the Boston University. A scholar and expert on insurgencies, particularly those in Latin American countries, Professor Palmer visited Nepal last week. He spoke to KESHAB POUDEL and SANJAYA DHAKAL, exclusively, on his observations about the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the ongoing peace process. Excerpts:

What do you think about the Maoist insurgency in Nepal?

My observations come from international comparative perspectives; not from a deep knowledge of Nepal. I see it as one of a number of cases, historically, where a strong ideological group has disagreed with the dynamics of the country and decides that there is no other recourse than to engage in a people's war. The case that I had studied most is that of Peru. It seems to me that there are lots of parallels between these two cases. One of the problems that Peru's Maoists had was that they were so persuaded about the correctness of the ideologies that they imposed themselves on the very population that they claimed to be trying to free from oppression. That resulted in a new reign of oppression of the indigenous population of the highlands of Peru, which turned out to be very counter-productive for the Peruvian Maoists when the government began to get its act together, when it began to respond effectively. My external impression is that the Maoists of Nepal have come to the same perspective, have the same view and have much of the same strategy and approach. What I read in newspapers, because I have not visited or talked with Maoist leaders, is that there are some of the same kind of activities taking place, if that is true, that would suggest that the Maoists of Nepal are making the same mistakes that the Maoists of Peru had made. They will not win the revolution if they are perceived to be making their revolutions on the back of the people just as they claim that the government and the establishment does now.

What are your observations regarding the peace process?

It seems to me that the peace process is just beginning in Nepal based on my comparative understanding of peace processes elsewhere. Look at the example of Sri Lanka, how long the peace process there has been going on. Look at the process in Palestine and Israel, again you will observe the Oslo agreement — how they were moving forward, then they moved backwards and how they abandoned it. This is all very difficult challenge when two groups - the government and the violent opposition who feel that their very existence, their future is at stake. It takes time and it is very difficult. So, I would say at this early stage that there are some positive signs and some negative signs. The positive sign is that both the government and the Maoists want to talk — I think that is very important. Even though there are profound disagreements they are working to overcome those to be able to move forward. The second good sign is that they came to this decision themselves. They did not feel they had to go to some outside parties to come in and help them get started. On the negative side of the equation, it is distressing to me from outside that the ceasefire is being violated. That shouldn't happen. One way to begin to get trust is to observe any agreements you come to. I understand the violations have been on the both sides. It looks to me, at least since I have been here for the last ten days, that most of the reporting have been on the violations from the Maoists. That is not a good sign. Another negative thing is that it is unfortunate that the situation in Nepal does not include the representatives of the major political forces as part of the government. That weakens the strength of the government and its ability to present strong united front that includes other political actors of the country except for the Maoists.

Keeping in mind Nepal's geographical location — China in the north and India in the south. How do you see the possibility of external intervention if the peace process fails or the insurgency just escalates?

I think I will frame it little differently. What is the role that international actors can play in the process of negotiation and what might help it move forward and what might hinder it or cause it even to fail? I am more comfortable putting it into this context. Every single case of profound internal conflict has had an external actor or two or three involved. So, you can almost take for granted that the external actors are going to have something to say or something to do with the process. They may not be decisive but they will affect the process. In the case of El Salvador, the United States was a very important actor on the side of the government and the revolutionary Nicaraguan and Cuban government were important actors on the side of the FMLN rebels. They certainly had a lot to do with perpetuating the conflict for a long period of time. It was only when some of those elements changed and when the population basically rose up to say that we don't care who is right, we want to stop the violence, that process began to move forward. In Nepal's case, certainly by your location, it seems to me, that the main actor you need to consider is clearly India. The role of India has been very important for Nepal for economic, political and all sorts of reasons. It strikes me that any calculation by the government or the Maoists will need to take into account the Indian position and Indian views. My guess is that the India factor will be important, if not explicitly then at least implicitly, in the internal negotiations and in the calculations that each sides makes.

We also have a northern powerful neighbor China. Though they maintain silence, they may also be concerned. In that scenario, how do you see the third party involvement like the UN or Switzerland or some other European nations?

Well, I think in the process of negotiations themselves, my impression is that there is real desire on the part of many of the actors in the equation — the facilitators, the negotiators, the government and the Maoists — not to have an outside party. But I think that it is very important to, at least, be aware of that possibility if and when you move to an impasse, a profound impasse that you can't solve yourself. If that moment occurs, and I think it could occur in this context because of how far apart the two negotiating sides are at this point, that there are a number of possibilities and they would need to agree among themselves on whom they both can trust.

It is said that the negotiations are carried on with an upper hand tend to succeed. The government in Nepal has adopted a defeatist attitude. Do you think they will succeed?

I am not sure that negotiations from the strength are always possible. That's the ideal, of course. Each party would love to negotiate from the position of strength. Each party would make the best case possible to demonstrate that it is stronger than the other side and hope that it gets more concessions than it deserves or might get otherwise. Before getting into serious, as we would say hand-to-hand combat in the negotiating process, a lot of posturing takes place. It seems to be this is what you have been going through up to this point. You are about to get into the serious business. I would observe that for every person who says that the Maoists are negotiating from strength, there is another who says they are negotiating from weakness and vice versa. So, this may be a case of an uncertainty, in principle, in the strength equation calculus. That could be risky. But that also could make progress more possible because neither side is really strong enough, perhaps, to impose a particular solution. What we have seen in the peace process is that if it turns out that one side, because of their negotiating ability or whatever, is able to outmaneuver and get imbalanced agreement — those agreements don't hold, they fall apart because the other side will not be satisfied.

What do you think about the extreme political corruption in Nepal? And also about the sidelining of the political parties from the peace process?

Well, you have much better sense than I. In principle, it would be better if it were possible for the parties to be a part of the process. But in order to be a part of the process, they have to be a part of the government. And that poses serious problem for them. It seems to be unfortunate that like in Peru and other Latin American countries, the parties, when in power, did not do a good job, did not govern well, created more problems than they solved. In particular, since 1990, it seems to me that perception of the significant portion of the population is that the democracy has been dysfunctional and, therefore, they have lost some of their legitimacy. So, it is possible that the parties have created their own legitimacy crisis. At this moment, they are stewing in the very broth that they cooked up themselves.

The open border between smaller country Nepal and the giant India is causing immense problems for Nepal. Taking it into account, do you think whether the border needs to be regulated?

In many ways its like border that remains an open border between the United States and Mexico. It's very porous. Lot of things get through — good things and bad things. We have got 12 million Mexican citizens living in the United States — that is about 5 percent of the total population. About 4 million of them are there illegally. And there's lots of commerce that goes through across the border that is not legal particularly the illegal drugs. Now it's become a focus for a lot of migrants from other parts of the world; who come to Mexico, get illegal visas and try to get across. It's become such a big problem even though we try to tighten it up. After 9/11 we have been very conscious of the need to have strict border control. Well, if the United States cannot do it, may be just having an open border and keeping it open is the way to proceed. The principle of open border is a laudable one and I think it is worth continuing. At the same time you need to have an understanding between the two governments when you get into a particular problem — say may be of criminals coming through or citizens leaving to work illegally or illegal commerce or like the current controversies of dam construction or whatever. The issue of the Maoists safe haven is also a very important one. I think the two governments should discuss, may be they already have, the ability of the Maoists to move back and forth at will. Whether the Indian government will agree to that is another story. But that is clearly the government-to-government affair.

After the end of the cold war, many small states are embroiled in inter-state and intra-state conflicts. Even Nepal, which enjoyed peace during the cold war, is now caught in the conflict. How do you see this?

Up to the end of the cold war, there were a certain number of states that had the United States or the western power as an ally and others that had the Soviet Union as an ally. This had kept things under control. With the removal of this, some governments, some parties or opposition ruptured and were free to try to work out their own solutions. And while you have some very successful cases of being able to accomplish this there were, unfortunately, many more cases where you had irresponsible leadership and polarization. To me no place is sadder than the Balkans, the Yugoslavia, which I think was a disaster that didn't have to happen. But it indicates how important the leadership factor is. If there was good leadership, it would have kept Yugoslavia together, it would have overcome some of these very profound ethnic differences. If there's bad leadership it will try to exacerbate these differences for their own purpose. Now, certainly Nepal has multi-ethnic situation, you have a long history of sub-regional kingdom and government. It really is a new nation in terms of its present dynamics and it has some of the same issues and concerns played out in other places. I see this, generally, as a process of elites, societies, civilians and larger population working out inevitable challenges of citizen-state relations and the question of who, how, when, why are going to rule, particularly who — it takes time to foster understanding and compromise. It is a very difficult time. A lot of countries are experiencing very profound levels of violence by the people who believe they need to run the country and don't have any qualms about killing their fellow citizens in order to run the country.

As an academic, how do you find the situation in Nepal where western powers are coming to support the peace process even as there is great interest between two regional powers who are competing with each other? How would they take the interest shown by western powers?

Well, based on my academic analysis, I would say what is the stake that each actor has in the particular case and what their interests are. It seems to me that, in this particular case, of India, Pakistan, Nepal, China, United States, European community and donor agencies being involved, what you have is the dynamic that poses no threat in Nepal — the dynamic in Nepal in terms of financial and institutional support that is provided by the various outside powers, in no way, poses threat to any of Nepal's neighbors. That's my academic impression without knowing much about the history of perceptions and realities. So, I would think that neither China nor India nor Pakistan would take umbrage or would feel that their interests are threatened by the efforts of the United States and the donor community to preserve and facilitate the peace and to try to help Nepal develop. That seems to me to be the reality or, at least, what should be the perception on the part of the large outside actors.