Nepal (catch all)

[Ray]

Maoists in Nepal orders the King to vacate his Palace.

Kathmandu, April 18: The Nepal royal family has begun renovating King Gyanendra’s private residence, Nirmal Niwas, on a war footing after the Maoists issued a 28-day deadline to the king to vacate the Narayanhitti Palace.

Gyanendra’s son Prince Paras and his wife Himani are supervising the renovation of the Niwas, located in the busy Maharajgunj area of Kathmandu........

Maoist majority

The Maoists today inched closer to a simple majority under the direct voting system, bagging 119 seats in the elections.

With 240 seats up for grabs under the first-past-the-post voting system, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is just two short of a clear majority, followed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress with 35 seats and Communist Party of Nepal-UML (CPN-UML)with 31.

However, the former rebels got only 32 per cent of the votes cast under the proportionate representation system which prevents it from clinching a majority in the 601-seat Constituent Assembly.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/108041...ry_9158680.jsp

This nexus between the Indian and Nepal Maoists may raise various new issues in the subcontinent.

Nepal Factor

The Nepali Maoist organizations share a common objective with Indian Naxal organizations in overturning the status quo and establishing their own revolutionary rule. In 2004, both groups formed a cross border coordination committee to shelter each other’s cadres and share resources. These reports gives credence to the assumption that these two movements have more in common than just common ideology. The Indian and Nepali governments need to set their petty differences aside and coordinate the actions of their law enforcement bodies and administrations to deny sanctuary to the opposite side’s Naxal organizations. The recent flip-flops in Indian government policy in providing military aid to the Nepali government does not help the situation. The Indian government needs to adopt a consistent policy of providing support to the Nepal without allowing China and other countries to gain a foothold in Nepali affairs. While stopping arms supply to the RNA is not preferable as it will most certainly give China an opportunity to step in and provide arms to King Gyanendra, India needs to make sure that it’s arms are not used to suppress political dissent. Just as in India , the Nepali Maoists movement has it’s roots in genuine socio-political factors. Nepal must create conditions to clean the swamp that provides a fertile ground for fresh recruits.

Maoists in Bhutan

The other problem – though not as advanced as Nepal is Bhutan . Bhutan has a large refugee population composed primarily of Nepali origin. The Maoists are working hard to woo these refugees to join their movement and jump create trouble in Bhutan as well as Nepal . Although Bhutan did act finally to evict the ULFA training camps in 2004 after numerous Indian representations, a comprehensive solution has yet to be found to the refugee problem.

Bhutan is the ace up India ’s sleeve in case of North eastern India ’s problems going out of control. At least 50 youth from the refugee camps reportedly have joined the Maoists ranks.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/Volume21/paul.html

Interesting is also the fact that the internal problems of Tibet coincides with the unsettled situation in Nepal and India's sudden interest to reactivate old airfields bordering Tibet Autonomous Region.

As also the Border Road Organisation being pulled out of non border laying of roads within India and being redeployed for roads along the Indo Tibet Border.

And why did the Dalai Lama leave India during this period for a visit to the USA? http://www.dalailamafoundation.org/m...ents.jsp#80710

New Delhi: India is reactivating a military airfield which it operated 43 years ago and is a stone’s throw away from the Karakoram Pass held by China.


The last time India landed a fixed-wing aircraft at Daulat Beg Oldie airfield in northeastern Ladakh was in 1965. Landing fixed-wing at the airfield will enable India to induct troops swiftly.


"DBO (Daulat Beg Oldie) becomes very, very crucial because our troop strength there may have to be increased 10 times (in the event of a conflict). And if that happens when roads are in disuse, the only way will be to induct troops by air—that’s what was done during 1962,” says strategic affairs analyst Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak.


Though a conflict with China looks improbable at the moment, Karakoram lies on an axis which could be used to threaten Ladakh. India is most vulnerable in this area. By activating the airfield at Daulat Beg Oldie, India would like to be seen as exercising a more assertive presence on the disputed boundary with China.


There are also plans to revive airfields at Chushul and Fukche further south along the Sino-Indian boundary in Ladakh. For a brief while after the Chinese aggression in 1962, these airstrips were extensively used for troop build-up and have since been in disuse. Provision of forward airstrips now is a priority not just in Ladakh but also in Arunachal

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india-da...d/63546-3.html

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NEW DELHI, MARCH 1:In a show of urgency prompted by aggressive Chinese military activity along the India-China border, the Government has decided to withdraw the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) from road projects within the country and ordered immediate diversion of these resources to build over 1,100 km roads along the China border.
http://www.indianexpress.com/iep/sun...ry/279094.html

and yet at the same time, India ensured a dead city syndrome in Delhi, when the Olympic Torch Relay ran the truncated 3 km route with none observing the same except the 21000 odd security forces who were guarding the route!!

New Delhi, April 17: Indians today got to see what life in China is like, but only on television, through a charade played out on their own capital’s streets.

Delhi allowed China to use the iconic Rajpath to display posters against the Dalai Lama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the western media, while clinically clamping down on Tibetan protests.

As the Olympic torch trundled down Rajpath — hidden from ordinary Indian eyes by an iron curtain of security — official Chinese delegates were allowed to walk and bus with propaganda placards.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/archives/archive.html

One wonders if there is more to it than what meets the eye.

Has the coming of Maoist in Nepal caused a churn in the fine balance that was there in Nepal and the adjoining areas?

[Ray]

More as a bacgrounder:

China tries to sabotage border roads

22 Dec 2007, 0116 hrs IST,Amalendu Kundu,TNN

GANGTOK: The Kunming bonhomie notwithstanding, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China is undercutting Indian Army's efforts to strengthen its presence on the border. On November 23, a week before the visit of defence minister A K Antony and chief of army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor to Sikkim, PLA soldiers unloaded boulders in an effort to wreck the construction of a metalled road at Fingertips, a strategic spot near Gurudongmar in North Sikkim. The area is close to the Kangra La pass bordering south-west Tibet.

Indian troops, however, swung into action the next morning, and removed the obstruction. The road construction — at an altitude of 18,500 feet — was completed on November 27. Chinese representatives, however, did not speak about the offensive at Fingertips during a meeting between army representatives from both sides on November 23. They also kept quiet on the bunker dispute at the trijunction of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

Significantly, prior to the Fingertips manoeuvre, Chinese troops had entered Indian territory and asked Indian Army personnel manning the border post there to stop construction of the road.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/I...ow/2642152.cms

[JJackson]

US in contact with Nepal Maoists

[Ray]

KING AND COMRADES
- The Maoist victory in Nepal is not as conclusive as is made out

http://www.telegraphindia.com/108050...ry_9216492.jsp

[Norfolk]

No, it's not, but then the Communists comprised only minorities in the parliaments of many Eastern European states in the late 1940's. The Maoists may not have a "friendly" foreign army to lend them irresistable force, but there is no way that the hard-core is going to give up on their ultimate goals - whatever they may be - any time soon.

I just can't see how any real good will come out of this predicament, either for Nepal itself, or for India.

[Ray]

It is a very delicate and tricky situation; more so, it the guerillas are taken into the Army!

It is the power hungry and ruthless King who has led this situation to come to pass to this sorry state!

One must watch the situation carefully.

With Tibet up in flames, China would love a fraternal buffer!

[Ray]

MISSION POSSIBLE - The new Nepal needs to recognize that it cannot do without India
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

The spotlight that has shifted from Shri Panch Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva should rightly fall on Sitaram Yechury, to whom the United Progressive Alliance government virtually outsourced India’s relations with Nepal. Since he has been the principal interlocutor between the two countries, our expectations of a stable and responsible regime that is mindful of India’s interests on a strategic border are largely concentrated in him. Much will depend on how Yechury has presented the Indian national position, as distinct from his own ideological inclinations, to Prachanda and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

Strictly speaking, the transformation of the world’s only Hindu kingdom into a republic is no concern of India’s. Forms of governance are internal matters. But since domestic evolution is intertwined with foreign policy, especially for a landlocked country whose fortunes are so closely linked with those of its southern neighbour, New Delhi will carefully watch how the new men in Kathmandu conduct themselves in the coming weeks and months. The jubilant crowds we see on television screens speak of relief and hope. Since neither is a permanent factor in the merry-go-round of politics, those crowds can just as easily turn either into the Maoist mobs that have ravaged Nepal for years or protesters to be mown down like the civil war’s 13,000 victims.......