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MAOIST INFORMATION BULLETIN – 1

[Occasional Information Bulletin of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)]

 

On This Bulletin…

 

W

orld imperialism boasts of the current era as the ‘age of information’.  By which it means its enhanced capacity to manufacture disinformation through it monopoly control over the mass media – both print & electronics for its sole goal of profit maximization. As imperialism means ‘war capitalism’, disinformation has been a major weapon of unjust war waged by imperialism & its lackeys all over the world.  The Nepali reactionary ruling classes are no exception to this.

 

D

isinformation campaign, in the tradition of the notorious Goebbels, has always been the chosen weapon of the Nepali reactionaries during the past six years of the People’s War(PW). Ever since the declaration of the state of emergency on November 26 and suspension of all fundamental & civic rights of people, including the right to information, provided in their own constitution, disinformation campaign has been the most important pursuit of the reactionary rulers.  They have not only resorted to white lies on depicting the actual situation in the battlefield and often made exaggerated claims of their exploits to conceal their factual defeats, but they have shamelessly dared to hurl such ridiculous accusations as  the members of the glorious People’s Liberation Army (PLA) having decapitated their fallen heroes to hide their identity and sought to drive a mischievous wedge among the top leadership of the Party by fabricating the so-called ‘hard-liner‘ & ‘softliner’ wings.  As all the news papers with a revolutionary leaning have been shut down, progressive journalists jailed and independent media barred from reporting the truth, the gullible public is subjected to daily doses of shere lies or half-truths and has no alternate means to verify the truth.

 

T

his bulletin, though in a very humble & grossly inadequate manner, seeks to provide that alternate access to the quest for truth.  We as the genuine revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat have nothing to hide from the public and the masses.  Also it is the sign of a mature proletarian Party to learn from its won mistakes.  We, therefore, vow to defeat the enemy’s disinformation campaign by battering it with truthful & factual information, which at times may not go in our own favour.  It is expected that all the revolutionary co-fighters and general votaries of objective truth will make best use of it and try their best to disseminate it as widely as possible.

 

WHO BROKE THE TALKS & WHY ?

 

A

 sustained campaign has been launched by the reactionary rulers to hammer the point that it was we Maoists who have broken the talks and violated the four month-old truce.  And they have fabricated the myth of a so-called two-line struggle within  the Party to justify their charge.  But what are the facts ?

 

T

he first glaring fact is that it was the murderous Gyanendra clique which was calling the shots all along during the truce to consolidate its shaky position by mobilising the royal army and was thwarting all attempts from our side to find a political solution in the form of an interim government, a new constitution and instutionalisation of the republic.  Deuba was a mere helpless pawn in the hands of Gyanendra & Girija cliques.  Throughout the three rounds of talks between August 30 and November 13 that we had with the old regime the Deuba government did not make a single political proposal to solve the problems of the country, but stuck to rejecting all the most moderate and practical political proposals put forward by us.  When we offered to go for the election of a constituent assembly to settle the question of republic in the third & the last round of talks, they summarily rejected it without, making any other alternative proposal.  What was the point then in continuing with the endless rounds of talks with no political  solution in sight ?  Meanwhile the Gyanendra clique, which effectively controls the traditional royal army and through which it had staged a royal coup de’tat last June by wiping out the whole family of king Birendra, was making massive military preparations throughout the country against the revolutionary forces.  The Dang barrack and military depot was the centre of military offensive they were planning against the Revolutionary Base Areas in the Rapti Zone (i.e. the districts of Rolpa, Rukum, Sallyan, etc.). So it was obvious that this counter revolutionary move under the cover of ‘peace talks’ be effectively preempted.  This was what happened on November 23.  So should there be any doubt who objectively broke the talks ?  As clarified by Chairman Prachanda in his interview to The Times of India (November 2, 2001), our Party is still open to the proposal of talks if a concrete political solution to the country’s problem (i.e. abolition of the hated monarchy and institutionalisation of the republic) is offered.

 

To conceal their embarrassment of a shattering military defeat and the never-ending power struggle within their own ranks the reactionary rulers have sought to fabricate a so-called friction between the political and military leadership of the Party.  In this context they have particularly attempted to float their own ‘leaders’ heading the different imaginary departments and tried to create the impression that a so-called military wing headed by Com. Badal (Ram Bahadur Thapa ) was responsible for pressurising the Party leadership to take the current course of action.  This is, however, just the figment of imagination of the reactionaries, if not a deliberate disinformation campaign to confuse the masses.  The actual reality is that our Party has developed a unified and centralised leadership under the supreme command of Chairman Prachanda and all the major decisions have been taken unanimously.  Of the three instruments of revolution, viz. The Party, the Army and the United Front, it is well known that Com.  Prachanda is the Chairman of the Party and the Supreme Commander of the PLA and Com. Baburam Bhattarai is the Convenor of the recently formed United Revolutionary People’s Council (URPC).  This leaves no scope for any confusion about the leadership hierarchy in the Party.  The revolution has produced a distinguished galaxy of leaders including Com. Kiran, Com. Diwakar, Com. Badal and others and they are fulfilling their responsibilities in their respective fields with distinction.  Certainly Com. Badal is not the ‘Military Chief’ as is made out to be in the media and there is no question of him going against the plans and policies of the party.

 

INITIAL FAILURE OF THE ROYAL ARMY OPERATION

 

The declaration of the state of emergency and deployment of the royal army since November 26 has met with complete initial failure.  According to the informations received from various regional commands, the royal army caged in the reactionary barracks for ages, has not ventured to enter into the main Revolutionary Base Areas (RBA) so far and has made only sporadic aerial attacks from the helicopters in different parts of the country.  When their initial attempts to enter into the RBA were thwarted by successful road mines & ambushes in Surkhet and Pyuthan, they have beaten a hasty retreat and are devising alternate strategies to carry out their counter revolutionary objectives. 

 

Meanwhile they have taken recourse to massacre of unarmed masses in the peripheral areas.  On November 27 the royal army massacred 11 poor peasants of the oppressed Tharu nationality in Dang.  The unarmed poor peasants were harvesting rice in the fields of a landlord when they were mercilessly gunned down by the royal butchers.  It may be noted that the All Nepal Peasants’ Association (Revolutionary) has given a call for implementing tri-khandi system (i.e. one-third to the landlord and two-third to the tenants) and the poor tenants, specially in the southern plains of Terai, have responded to it overwhelmingly.

 

On the same day a large gathering of people assembled for a traditional fair in Sallayan were fired upon by the royal army and 13 persons killed on the spot.  Similarly there are reports from different districts such as Gorkha, Rupendehi, Syanja, Kalikot, Makwanpur, Dolakha and others, where unarmed masses of people have been fired upon and killed by the royal army.

 

Unable to locate and take upon the PLA, the reactionary side has launched a vicious propaganda war, spreading unsubstantiated rumours through its controlled media.  One such deliberate rumour has been the killing or capture of a number of important leaders of the Party including Com. Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the chief negotiator of the Party.   However its has been a complete hogwash.  No Central or regional level leader of the Party except Com. Rabindra Shrestha, who was captured on November 25, has been captured by the enemy, nor anyone killed, so far. Definitely the enemy’s principal strategy has been to capture or liquidate the central leadership of the Party, which they have not succeeded so far, and the Party is fully geared to thwart it.

 

The enemy has taken into custody hundreds of innocent masses and some of the sympathisers of the Party from different parts of the country.  Also they have forced some members of the local Peoples’ Committees to sign false papers of ‘surrender’ under the butt of a rifle and sought to make a mountain out of a mole-hill.  But the actual ground reality is that the total revolutionary rank and file is in a complete upbeat mood, whereas the reactionary camp, particularly its royal army is in a crest fallen state.  The way they have been seeking frantic military help, particularly from India, adequately speaks of this.

 

The position of the reactionary camp has been all the more weakened with the increasing opposition to the declaration of the state of emergency by the various parliamentary parties, including the revisionist left parties themselves.

 

WHITE LIES ABOUT THE CASUALTIES

 

Unable to digest their shameful defeat at the hands of the PLA on the very first encounter on November 23 in Dang, the royal army and their state patrons have been spreading white lies about the non-happening subsequent encounters or grossly exaggerating the number of casualties suffered from our side.  One such gross fabrication has been the much propagated casualties of 200 or so supposedly suffered by our side in Salleri on November 25.  To hide their inability to substantiate such ridiculous claims thy have invented such atrocious lies as our side having beheaded or mutilated the fallen comrades to conceal their real identity.  No person with an iota of common sense would believe such perverted accusation.  Even then as this ridiculous claim of the reactionary.  Defence Ministry, full ten days after the incident, has been bought by various national and international news agencies as a ‘verification’, the truth needs to be told.

 

The real truth is this: on that Salleri encounter total casualties on our side were seventeen, whereas on the side of the enemy it was thirty-three (including 27 police-men, 4 army men and 2 bureaucrats).  Similarly, on November 23, in Dang three of our PLA comrades were martyred on the spot and four more succumbed to their injuries later on, whereas on the enemy side the total casualty was twenty-five (including 14 army men and 11 policemen) and several dozens injured.  On the same day in Syangja, fourteen policemen were killed, whereas there was no casualty on our side.  Let independent sources verify or contradict these facts.  Why should we tell lies about the number of fallen heroes on our side ?  Moreover, why should we commit such heinous crime as to behead or mutilate a fallen comrade ?  Everybody knows we revere and honour our fallen heroes and heroines and not shy away from but take pride in the great process of revolutionary martyrdom.

 

Similarly, there should be no difficulty in outrightly rejecting the unsubstantiated fall claims of the reactionaries as that of their inflicting heavy casualties on us through helicopter gunships.  When asked by foreign reporters to substantiate their tall claims, the reactionary, spokesperson is reported to have sought to hide under a lame excuse of their inability due to poor weather conditions prevailing in the battle zones.  Everybody knows this is one of the best weather seasons in the areas where the real battle is taking place.  But the question remains: if the weather did not permit to count the casualties, how did it permit to fix the target, if at all ? What a lame excuse!

 

 LETTER TO INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY 

 

At a time when the tottering old regime in Nepal is seeking military and other help from foreign powers to save its skin, the CPN (Maoist), the PLA and the URPC have written a joint letter to the international community, including the UN, India, China, USA and the European Union, asking them not to interfere in the internal affairs of Nepal and let the Nepalese People determine their own political future.  The letter signed by Com. Prachanda on behalf of the Party and the PLA and by Com. Baburam Bhattarai on behalf of the URPC have been sent through their respective representatives in Nepal on December 3. 2001.  [The full text of the letter is  available on request.]

 

‘NEPAL BANDH’ OBSERVED ON DECEMBER 7, 2001

 

A ‘Nepal Bandh’ (General shut-down) called by the United Revolutionary People’s Council (URPC) on December 7, calling for “All power to the URPC” and in protest against the recent imposition of state of emergency has been a grand success.  According to the initial information available from different parts of the country, a complete general political strike has been observed throughout the country despite the intimidatory tactics applied by the old regime and its armed forces on the people against the strike.