[A-List] CPI (ML) (Liberation) on Nepal

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

By *Lal Bahadur Singh*, /Liberation/, magazine of the *Communist Party
of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation)*

Kathmandu -- ``Nepal Stuns World, Itself: Poll Peaceful, Turnout 60%''
-- that was the banner headline of the /Kathmandu Post/, the leading
Nepal newspaper, on April 11, 2008, the morrow of the historic
constituent assembly elections. It was stunning indeed that the
constituent assembly elections in a Nepal torn by civil strife were held
in a remarkably peaceful atmosphere, and with a huge participation of
the people. However the real stunner was yet to come some hours later
when by the midnight of April 11 it became clear that a Red Star was
rising in full bloom over Sagarmatha, i.e. Everest, the highest peak in
the world, in the erstwhile Himalayan Kingdom.

In an ironic reversal, at a time when people were speculating whether
the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) -- CPN (M) -- would accept the
verdict or return to the jungle again in the eventuality of their
presumed certain defeat, when US ex-President Jimmy Carter was citing
his Nicaraguan Sandinista experience and telling the world that Maoists
had assured him that they would accept the results even if defeated, and
so on and so forth, the people of Nepal catapulted the Maoists to power.

It was indeed a great comment on the complete alienation from the
popular masses and myopic vision of the middle-class opinion makers in
Nepal, as well as the corporate media and powers-that-be in India and
the world over, that until the election results started pouring in, they
were all predicting a lead by the Nepali Congress party, and the Maoists
in third place.

To be in Kathmandu and Nepal was to have a real feel of the excitement
that rocked Nepal in those tumultuous days, in its historic moment of
epochal political transition from monarchy to republic, and that too
under revolutionary Communist leadership.

Full:
http://links.org.au/node/385

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