US embassy cable - 02KATHMANDU2223

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KATHMANDU 002223 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
LONDON FOR POL - RIEDEL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/20/2012 
TAGS: MARR, MOPS, MASS, PGOV, PTER, NP, Maoist Insurgency 
SUBJECT: NEPAL:  BRIGADE COMMANDER SAYS MAOISTS SLOWLY 
WINNING 
 
REF: A. (A) KATHMANDU 379 
 
     B. (B) KATHMANDU 1741 
 
Classified By: DCM ROBERT K. BOGGS.  REASON:  1.5 (B,D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (C) At a briefing at 3rd Brigade Headquarters in Pokhara 
November 20, Brig. Gen. Prakash Basnet told DATT and poloff 
he believes the Maoists are "slowly winning."  After making 
significant inroads against the Maoists during the first 
three months of the state of emergency (late 
November-mid-February), the Army has since lost the upper 
hand.  The insurgents are better organized and more unified 
than the Government of Nepal, and are manipulating "weak and 
cowardly" elements within democratic society to push for 
dialogue.  Only the Maoists and the Army are working, in the 
Brigade Commander's view; civilian government functions in 
only about 20-30 percent of his area of operation.  Basnet 
said he lacks sufficient manpower and mobility to defeat the 
Maoists and has received no resources to implement Integrated 
Security and Development Program (ISDP) projects in his area. 
End summary. 
 
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THE VIEW FROM THE WEST 
----------------------- 
 
2.  (SBU)  On November 20 DATT and poloff attended a briefing 
offered by Brig. Gen. Prakash Basnet, Commander of the 3rd 
Brigade headquartered in Pokhara (approx. 210 km northwest of 
Kathmandu).  Basnet's AOR covers more than 39,000 square 
kilometers, includes 16 administrative districts, and is home 
to 4.6 million Nepalis.  The brigade is composed of three 
infantry battalions; one engineering battalion; one 
headquarters battalion; and seven independent infantry 
companies, located at 61 different outposts.  (Note: 
Independent companies are nearly twice the size of battalion 
companies, with 235 soldiers vice 135.  End note.) 
 
3.  (C)  Basnet said he believes the Maoists are "slowly 
winning" the fight in his area.  During the first three 
months of the state of national emergency (Nov. 
26-mid-February 2002), Basnet used helicopters to deploy his 
troops in an aggressive campaign against Maoist insurgents in 
the 16 districts in his AOR.  The Maoists suffered serious 
reverses as a result, Basnet asserted, and much of their 
Central and some their Western Commands were shattered.  The 
tide turned after the Maoist assault on the district 
headquarters in Achham on February 17, however, when the 
Royal Nepal Army (RNA) began moving its limited air assets to 
other priority locations (e.g., the 11th Brigade in Kathmandu 
and the Western Division).  Without helicopters, Basnet says 
he has lost the mobility needed to maintain the offensive 
advantage against the insurgents.  The civilian government 
also failed to provide adequate resources to mount a credible 
campaign against the insurgents, he charged.  The Maoists 
used the monsoon to recruit, retrain and regroup, he 
asserted, and are gradually rebuilding their Western Command. 
 (Note:  When asked if the Brigade was receiving more 
resources since the King dismissed the previous government, 
Basnet said that he had been given wire to build perimeter 
defenses.  End note.) 
 
4.  (C)  Large portions of his AOR remain under effective 
Maoist control, Basnet acknowledged.  Only district 
headquarters and a few other larger towns are safe.  Even the 
Chief District Officer (CDO) in Pokhara's Kaski 
District--considered one of the safest in the country--cannot 
visit all the Village Devolopment Committees in his 
jurisdiction.  The rest of the territory--including some 
sites with RNA outposts--are dominated by the Maoists at 
night.  In Baglung District, for example, two of the sites 
with RNA garrisons are safe only during the day.  When 
soldiers enter a town on patrol, the Maoists disappear.  At 
night, however, when the soldiers return to the barracks, the 
Maoists return to the villages.  Local government has largely 
ceased to function, except in the district headquarters, 
according to Basnet.  Police have, for the most part, also 
withdrawn to locations fortified by the RNA. 
 
5.  (U)  Since the beginning of the insurgency in 1996, the 
16 districts in Basnet's AOR have suffered the destruction 
of: 
 
--400 VDC buildings; 
--6 telecom repeater stations; 
--3 power stations; 
--15 schools; 
--24 health posts; 
--30 banks; 
--30 forestry posts; 
--24 post offices; 
--50 police stations; 
--14 state-owned corporation offices; 
--30 government vehicles; 
--1 bridge. 
 
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FAULT OF CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT 
---------------------------- 
 
6.  (C) For Basnet, responsibility for the RNA's failure to 
counter the Maoists thus far lies squarely at the feet of 
former democratically elected governments.  Self-interested 
and corrupt politicians (and, he implied, civil servants) 
were not serious about allocating enough sufficient financial 
and human resources to fight the Maoists, he alleged.  For 
example, the Brigade was never given funding to implement the 
envisioned Integrated Security and Development Program 
(ISDP), even though Gorkha--originally intended to be the 
ISDP showcase district--falls within his AOR.  Civil servants 
do not perform their assigned functions.  As an example, he 
noted that the RNA brought the bodies of policemen killed in 
a Maoist attack in April to the district hospital in 
Gorkha--only to find that not one of five government doctors 
assigned to the hospital was in town.  The bodies eventually 
had to be brought to the Brigade headquarters in Pokhara for 
post mortems.  Basnet estimates that only about 20 to 30 
percent of the 917 Village Development Committees (VDCs are 
the smallest unit of local government) in his AOR are 
currently operating.  Only the Maoists and the RNA are 
working, he stated, indicating that ordinary people therefore 
feel abandoned by their government.  "Are we winning hearts 
and minds" this way? he asked rhetorically.  Intelligence 
resources up to the state of emergency were poor, he 
contended, because succesesive democratic governments had 
been using the National Intelligence Division (NID) as a 
repository for party hacks for the past 12 years. 
 
7.  (C)  The Maoists successfully exploit the internal 
bickering and tendentiousness commonplace among mainstream 
politicians, thereby preventing the development of a strong 
domestic political consensus against the campaign of terror, 
he said.  "We are not united as the Maoists are," he 
observed, adding that the insurgents have successfully 
integrated political, military, psyops, and social elements 
into their operational campaigns.  Even now, he charged, the 
insurgents are manipulating "weak and selfish and cowardly 
elements of democratic society" into pressing the Government 
of Nepal (GON) for dialogue, instead of supporting the RNA in 
its fight.  The militants have co-opted members of human 
rights groups, newspaper editors, teachers, and "the ICRC," 
along with assorted sociopaths and criminals, to promote 
their ends, and have highlighted the GON's continued failure 
to address the grievances of "ethnically disadvantaged" 
groups, such as Tamangs, Magars, and the lowest castes, for 
recruitment purposes.  (Some of the 60,000 ex-Indian Gurkhas 
now living in the AOR have also provided training and funding 
to the Maoists, Basnet said; India has been actively 
assisting the GON in helping stop this.)  Thus, the Maoists 
now "feel the national situation is changing in their favor," 
he concluded. 
 
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NEEDS:  TRAINED MANPOWER, MOBILITY, COMMO 
------------------------------------------- 
 
8.  (C)  "The Maoists know very well our weakness," Basnet 
complained:  lack of adequate manpower and sufficient 
mobility.  Because the Maoists only stay two days in any 
given location, RNA troops need to be able to move quickly to 
use intelligence on insurgent whereabouts, Basnet said.  When 
the 3rd Brigade had more helicopters, they were better able 
to interdict Maoist movements and training.  With only 
limited air assets available since the attack on Achham, the 
Brigade's mode has shifted to primarily a defensive one.  In 
addition, Basnet estimates he needs 14 battalions (he now has 
approximately 7) to counter the insurgents effectively.  The 
troops must be better trained, he added, noting that the 
amount of time new recruits spend in basic training has been 
cut by two months.   Once they graduate from basic training, 
recruits and other soldiers receive little on-duty training, 
he confirmed. 
 
9.  (C)  The RNA has a 900-officer deficit at the mid-ranks, 
and the NCOs are weak, Basnet lamented.  Weapons are not the 
most critical need when troops lack appropriate fire 
discipline, he pointed out.  When Maoists launch nighttime 
attacks on RNA fixed positions, Basnet said, they typically 
use socket bombs, which are only about 50 percent reliable. 
In these situations, the soldier forgets his training and, 
panicked, will try to fire 300 rounds from one self-loading 
rifle (SLR).  RNA soldiers will continue firing at an enemy 
they cannot see until they run out of ammunition and/or the 
weapon jams--which is virtually inevitable under these 
conditions, Basnet observed.  Once the Maoists determine the 
soldiers are indeed out of ammunition, they lead a more 
targeted assault to overrun the position.  More basic 
training with basic weapons and tactics in needed, he 
emphasized. 
 
10.  (C) Basnet cited secure communications as another urgent 
need.  When Maoists attacked the district headquarters in 
Arghakhanchi on September 7 (Ref B), Basnet called in air 
support for beleaguered troops on the ground.  (As Brigade 
Commander, his entire communication resources consisted of 
one telephone line and one radio.)  But because the 
helicopter had no way to communicate with the ground forces, 
when it finally arrived, it began firing on RNA positions. 
Basnet was, in turn, unable to communicate with the 
helicopter pilot, and instead had to call the airport tower 
in Kathmandu to contact the tower in Pokhara to pass the 
message to the pilot. 
 
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PLANNING 
--------- 
 
11.  (C) Basnet, who had just returned that day from meeting 
with the Chief of Army Staff, said he was unaware of the 
existence of any national campaign plan. He has visited all 
of the 61 RNA positions in his AOR, and has moved the 
district headquarters in Arghakhanchi (which was overrun in 
September) to a more strategic position atop a hill.  He does 
not believe the development of village militias in 
government-controlled areas is a useful concept for Nepal 
right now.  If the national police cannot even adequately 
defend a town--police attacked on November 15 in Gorkha held 
out for only 15 minutes, he charged--how can villagers be 
expected to? 
 
12.  (C)  According to Basnet, the Maoists plan to surround 
all district headquarters (where the RNA maintains fortified 
positions).  The Maoists have consolidated their previous 
three regional commands into two (the Central Command, 
according to one captured Maoist document, had supposedly 
been infiltrated by "traitors"), and are steadily rebuilding 
the loss of trained cadre in its Western Command, Basnet 
fears.  The militants have written a development plan for 
Rukum and Rolpa Districts, Basnet believes, and reported 
having seen evidence suggesting Maoists are building a road 
in Gulmi District.  A document captured recently from a 
Maoist detainee also indicates plans to levy a two percent 
tax on all government employees; to destroy village-level 
infrastructure; to continue a series of nationwide strikes, 
or "bandhs," and to disrupt any plans for local or national 
elections. 
 
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COMMENT 
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13.  (C)  Blaming the failures of successive democratic 
governments for all the problems of Nepal today--including 
the RNA's inability so far to counter the insurgency--is a 
common refrain among Army leadership.  Whether the interim 
government appointed by the King will succeed in marshalling 
more resources for the fight--defense spending had already 
risen to an all-time high of about one-quarter of the entire 
budget under the previous government of Prime Minister 
Deuba--remains to be seen.  Basnet's other comments, however, 
constitute a significant departure from standard RNA 
briefings, and may have been colored by his bearing 
responsibility for the debacle at Arghakhanchi in September 
(Ref B).  Nonetheless, his assessment that after nearly a 
year in the field the RNA has made little headway against the 
Maoists--and in some respects has even lost ground--is a 
sobering one--and stands in marked contrast to the upbeat 
assessment he gave the PACOM assessment team last April. 
MALINOWSKI