people’s liberation is not “terrorism”
imperialists and reactionaries - hands off nepal!
halfway around the globe, the us-led “war on
terror” is adding a new target: the millions of people of
nepal who for six years have waged revolutionary
struggle to overthrow a despotic, corrupt regime.
nepal is a small country with a population of 22
million situated in the heart of asia, surrounded by the
two regional giants, china and india. it is one of the
world’s poorest countries. the majority of its people are
peasants who work small plots, an acre or two in size,
earning an average of a dollar or two a day. the
impoverished conditions of life, back-breaking labour,
poor nutrition and lack of health care take a huge toll on
the people, especially women who also face a system of
dowries, arranged marriages, child brides and polygamy.
life expectancy in the countryside is no more than 50
years, and nepal is one of the only countries in the world
where the women do not live as long as the men. the
backward relations are now being welded more tightly to
the urban, globalised slavery of sweatshops, brothels and
internet marriage brokers. tourism, the country’s largest
source of foreign earnings, has developed tremendously
in recent decades under the “supportive” eye of the us
and britain. western tourists now pour into the country,
while at the same time poverty has driven millions of
nepalese into the shantytowns of delhi, bombay, calcutta
and throughout india, where they work in the worst jobs
in conditions of near slavery.
in february 1996, revolutionary people's war led
bz communist party of nepal (maoist) was initiated in the
countryside, and since then many millions have joined
this fight to take their destiny out of the hands of the
imperialist-backed feudal royal court and its hangers-on
and into their own hands. the regime in kathmandu, the
capital, has unleashed the full force of the royal nepal
army against the popular insurgency. a wave of army
brutality has followed, including disappearances, torture,
rape and thinly disguised executions (prisoners “shot
while trying to escape”). all this has been documented by
numerous human rights groups, despite repeated
government attempts to restrict access to combat zones.
instead of snuffing out the revolution, this vicious
wave of repression has only fed the flames, leading some
commentators to evoke the spectre of the coming fall of
the kathmandu regime. rather than watch their cronies go
down in flames, the western governments, led by the us
and uk, have begun substantially to step up aid to the
regime, and are delivering helicopters and other
equipment the military wants to intensify its campaign of
suppression in the countryside. not least of their fears is
that the revolutionary upsurge in nepal could ignite the
rage that lies smouldering among india’s hundreds of
millions of oppressed.
ominously, the us, uk and german media are now
trying to attach the label of “terrorist” to the
revolutionary upsurge in nepal. for decades they backed
nepal’s reactionary regime while the masses suffered in
wretched poverty, enduring appalling levels of hardship.
how many millions of children died of easily treatable
conditions like diarrhoea - the number one killer of
infants in nepal? how many millions worked themselves
into an early grave? how many died at the hands of
feudal goons and monarchist thugs? the west’s rulers
have overseen all this in approving silence. but now that
the people are rising to overthrow the pro-western
regime, their spokesmen have gone into a frenzy and are
fabricating wild lies about the “terrorism” of the
revolutionary forces.
in june of this year, the representatives of usa, uk,
germany, russia, india, china, nepal and the others held a
meeting in london to discuss how to crush the people's
war in nepal. among them, usa and germanz have alreadz
declared that they would provide tens of millions of
dollars as a source of nepalese state's militiary needs.
italy, belgium and the others continue contacts with
nepalese state on military equipment deliveries.
the attack on the struggle in nepal is making
clearer than ever the real goal of the us-led “global war
on terrorism”: to terrorise the world’s people into
submission to the imperialist masters. this imperialist
juggernaut must be opposed. the peoples living under the
european powers cannot stand by idly while the
governments act in their name to try to crush the struggle
of nepal’s people. the truth of what is going on in the
shadows of the himalayas must be spread. the world
people’s resistance movement is calling for a month-long
campaign of solidarity with the people of nepal in
october. get in touch with the local wprm branch, learn
more about what is happening in nepal and stand with the
people there.
provisional organizing committee,
world people's resistance movement
wprm@wprm.org www.wprm.org