Saner leaders of Nepal had taken a number of steps to avoid a civil war. But the Maoists have not yet given any undertaking to anyone to abjure violence and lay down arms.
This, despite appeals by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala Indian leaders such as former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, who had extended full support to the democratic movement in Nepal in 1990. The Maoists led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal has given no public undertaking to honour these appeals.
It is of course puerile to expect that the Maoists would ever give up their arms, and they have expressed their displeasure at the seven-party alliance Government seeking co-operation of the United Nations in disarming them.
Now comes the report from Kolkata (The Statesman, July 8, 2006) that despite their denial to CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury that they had any links with the Maoists of India, the Maoists of Nepal are seeking to hold a joint meeting of the West Bengal Maoists. The newspaper reports: ?But Intelligence Bureau reports, based on telephone conversations between the Nepalese and their comrades in West Bengal, suggest otherwise?. The exchanges in the last week of June, the report added, ?reveal (that) the Nepal Maoists were trying for a secret meeting somewhere in West Bengal.?
The newspaper says that although the Maoists of Nepal had told Yechury that they had no intention of setting up a ?red corridor? from Nepal to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh through India, and they were more interested in joining the seven-party government in their own country, the IB reports reveal otherwise. The conversations were intercepted after the release of about 200 Maoists from Nepal jails in the second week of June.
?During those conversations, Maoists leaders in the State (West Bengal) were asked to interact with Maoist groups in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, so that their leaders too came for the secret meeting, which could be held anywhere in the jungles of West Midnapore or Bankura. But then, they may prefer a safer venue all right?.
The Statesman report says that the calls to Nepal were from the West Midnapore and Bankura districts, the hotbed of Maoist rebels, but from Nepal the calls came from Kathmandu itself and not from such places as Rolpa, Rukum, Jajarkot, etc which are deep inside the western Nepal mountainous and forested regions.The IB now fears that there would be more Maoist attacks in the West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts, where the Maoists have their strongholds.
The newspaper quotes Shri Sujit Sarkar, Assistant Director General of the Intelligence Bureau as saying that ?Nepal'sMaoists do have links with the extremists in West Bengal, given their common ideology. We are monitoring the contacts between them following the release of prisoners in Nepal?.
There is another danger from Nepali Maoists which India should not under-estimate. This is the public declaration by Baburam Bhattarai, the second in command of the Nepali Maoists, that they would claim back from India all the territories which were annexed by the British after the Sugali Treaty of 1815.
On September 1, 2005, Prachanda, leader of the Nepali Maoists and Muppala Lakshmana Rao or Ganapathy, leader of the CPI-Maoists had issued a joint declaration, proclaiming among other things their determination to fight unitedly. (Ajai Sahani in the Pioneer, July 13, 2006.
We have another document too in this connection. This is a news item published in the Hindustan Times of September 23, 2000. This report was filed by the newspaper'scorrespondent at Raipur, Madhya Pradesh, ?The Naxalites active in the interior areas of Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh) and those in Nepal have joined hands to ?wage a war against the ruling classes?.
In a press release the Communist party of India (M-L) ?People'sWar active in Madhya Pradesh (Chhattisgarh now) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) have warned the two governments against what they called unleashing a campaign of extermination against the revolutionary forces?.
The release has been signed by Ajay on behalf of the People'sWar in India and his Nepali counterpart Gaurav. It says: ?Revolutionary cadres and leaders are being brutally tortured and killed in fake encounters. In the past one year, over 300 revolutionary have been murdered and thousands incarcerated in India? The statement particularly blames the Andhra Pradesh government for resorting to ?brutalities?.
It warned the Nepal government against deploying its army to take on the CPN(M). ?The reactionary Nepalese government has already massacred more than 1300 brave sons and daughters belonging to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists)?, it said.
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