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