TOI: Maoists only gainers

["Magnus Bernhardsen" <magnus.bernhardsen@xxxxx>]

[Hope I'm forgiven for posting the whole articles, but hey're quite short
and also I've had problems with the Times of India URL's in the past. MB]

http://www.timesofindia.com/today/06nepl48.htm

Maoists could spur Nepal's creeping instability
By Manoj Joshi

NEW DELHI: The protests, firings and curfew that have marked King
Gyanendra's accession to the Nepalese throne are bad omens. Bad enough as
the situation is for the Nepalese, the developments cannot but be deeply
troubling for India, which shares a 1700-km open border with the Himalayan
kingdom.

In a land where the literacy rate is a little over 25 per cent, the
monarchy has been deeply revered and has served the practical role of
keeping the disparate people of the mountain kingdom united. The inability
of Nepalese political parties to make parliamentary democracy work has only
served to highlight this role. But the circumstances of Gynanendra's
accession are bound to weaken the authority of the constitutional head of
the state vis-a-vis Nepal's factious parties as well as the people of the
country.

The only gainers at this point appear to be the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist), whose underground chief Prachanda declared in a statement on
Sunday that the massacre ``portrays the end of the present political
system''. The party abandoned the parliamentary path for the gun in 1996,
and has since embarked on an insurgency which has taken 1700 lives and
which, according to intelligence assessments, has intensified markedly this
year. The Maoists wield great influence among the student groups of
Kathmandu and it is no secret that they have formed the core of the
protests related to India, be it against the teaching of Sanskrit in
schools or Hrithik Roshan movies.

Official sources say that the visceral hatred of the Maoists for India has
persuaded them to strike up an opportunist alliance with Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence. For the past decade or so, the ISI has used
Kathmandu as a staging area for sending agents and explosives into India.

Indications that the Maoists are playing their cards carefully come from
Prachanda's statement which termed the killing of King Birendra and other
members of the royal family as a ``pre-planned massacre''. The statement
praised Birendra for his ``patriotic'' and liberal attitudes and attacked
Prime Minister G P Koirala, and ``the India capitalist, hegemonist
rulers''.

Though the party demands a new Constitution, its goal is to overthrow
monarchy and replace it with a one-party state. The Maoists control five of
Nepal's 75 districts and are active in 50 more. The epicentre of the
insurgency lies in the mid-western hill districts of Nepal, including
Pokhra. The movement has thousands of well trained cadres who are following
the classic Maoist strategy of striking roots in the rural area and
building up overwhelming strength to overwhelm Kathmandu. With the
developments of the past week, their task appears to have become much
easier.