US embassy cable - 03KATHMANDU2298

C O N F I D E N T I A L KATHMANDU 002298 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SA/INS, LONDON FOR POL/GURNEY, NSC FOR MILLARD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/24/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PTER, PREL, NP, Political Parties, Maoist Insurgency 
SUBJECT: NEPAL: COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER MEETS MAOIST LEADERS 
IN INDIA 
 
Classified By: DCM Robert K. Boggs for reasons 1.5 (b,d). 
 
1. (C) Summary.  On November 20, Communist Party of Nepal - 
United Marxist Leninst (CPN-UML) leader Madhav Kumar Nepal 
met with Maoist leaders in northern India.  Nepal's public 
statements following the meeting provoked criticism -- but 
not denial -- from the Maoists, as well as condemnation by 
other political parties and the prime minister.  Although 
Nepal and the Maoists agreed to meet for reasons of personal 
and partisan political advantage, it is less clear why the 
Indian Government would allow such a meeting to take place on 
its territory.  End Comment. 
 
2. (U) On November 20, Madhav Kumar Nepal, General Secretary 
of the Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxist Leninist 
(CPN-UML), reportedly met with Maoist leaders Baburam 
Bhattarai, Pushpa Kumar Dahal (alias Prachanda), and Krishna 
Bahadur Mahara in Lucknow, Uttar Pradash, India.  In a press 
conference in Kathmandu following the meeting, Nepal reported 
that the Maoists would be more likely to return to the 
negotiating table if there were an all-party government and 
blamed the failure of the peace talks on the current 
administration of Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa.  Nepal 
said he had pressed the Maoists to give up violence and join 
in the political parties' agitation against the King and 
Thapa government.  However, he noted, the Maoists refused his 
suggestion and remain committed to their three-point demand 
of a roundtable conference, interim government and 
constituent assembly elections as well as to the formation of 
a republican state. 
 
3. (U) Nepal's public statements sparked controversy and 
criticism from the Maoists, political parties and the Prime 
Minister.  Maoist spokesman Mahara denounced Nepal for 
"misleading" the Nepali public in his statements.  He claimed 
that, in the November 20 meeting, the Maoist leaders had 
demanded that the CPN-UML membership stop acting as 
"government spies," allegedly helping the GON to arrest and 
assassinate hundreds of Maoists.  Mahara added that the talks 
emphasized the need for "forceful resistance" by the people 
against the country's militarization and against the King and 
government.  According to spokesman Mahara, the Maoists are 
seeking to meet with all the political parties, including the 
Nepali Congress. 
 
4. (U) Nepali Congress (NC) Party leader, G.P. Koirala, 
criticized Nepal for not informing the other agitating 
political parties prior to his meeting with the Maoists. 
Koirala also claimed that his party would not meet with the 
Maoist leadership unless they renounce violence.  Likewise, 
Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, in a mildly-worded 
statement, argued that Nepal should not have met with a group 
that the government has declared to be terrorists. 
 
5. (C) Comment.  The motivations of both Madhav Nepal and the 
Maoists to meet, while different, seem easy to identify. 
Madhav Nepal most likely sought to raise his political 
profile as a viable candidate for Prime Minister and to 
appear as an effective interlocutor with the notoriously 
intransigent insurgents, as well as to gain some valuable 
public relations mileage for his sidelined party.  The 
Maoists, on the other hand, were likely motivated by a desire 
to widen the schism between the political parties and Prime 
Minister Thapa's government as well as by the hope that a 
meeting with the head of the largest democratic party might 
help legitimate their own tattered political credentials.  It 
is less clear what the Government of India's motivations 
could have been to allow this none too surreptitious meeting 
to take place (Nepal advertised his intentions in the local 
press the morning of the meeting).  If a prominent politician 
from Nepal can board a bus to Lucknow and meet with the 
Maoists' elusive leaders unimpeded by the GOI's extensive 
security apparatus, then oft-repeated GOI claims that it 
cannot locate the Maoist leaders sheltering in India ring 
hollower than ever.  End Comment. 
MALINOWSKI