US embassy cable - 03KATHMANDU656

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KATHMANDU 000656 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
LONDON FOR POL - GURNEY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2013 
TAGS: PTER, PINR, PGOV, NP, Maoist Insurgency 
SUBJECT: NEPAL:  MAOISTS ON MEDIA OVERKILL; GOVERNMENT 
KEEPING OWN COUNSEL 
 
REF: A. (A) KATHMANDU 0572 
 
     B. (B) KATHMANDU 0620 
     C. (C) KATHMANDU 0643 
 
Classified By: AMB. MICHAEL E.MALINOWSKI.  REASON:  1.5 (B,D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (C) Since his emergence from under ground nearly two 
weeks ago, Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai has dominated 
the headlines and airwaves of the Nepali media.  The Maoists 
have used the opportunity to criticize the Government of 
Nepal (GON) and the political parties for ineptitude; to 
emphasize repeatedly their call for a constituent assembly to 
draft a new constitution; to accuse the GON of deliberately 
stalling the peace process; and to alter and increase their 
demands. In contrast, the GON has been uncharacteristically 
quiet, allowing the Maoists to occupy center stage virtually 
unchallenged, at least for now. The GON's strategy of drawing 
out the peace process for as long as possible may work up to 
a point.  There is some risk, however, that it may delay too 
long and squander the momentum it has worked hard to develop. 
 The Maoist monologue in the media makes the political 
parties, already complaining of being sidelined and ignored 
by the Palace, appear increasingly superfluous.  The Indian 
Ambassador reports that the Maoists, still armed, are using 
the threat of violence to extort and to enforce participation 
at political rallies in the countryside.  End summary. 
 
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BABURAM BLITZKRIEG 
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2.  (SBU)  Since his first public appearance at a 
Maoist-staged press conference in Kathmandu on March 29 (Ref 
A), revolutionary ideologue Baburam Bhattarai has become a 
media staple, dominating the front pages and airwaves of both 
the government-owned and independent news agencies nearly 
non-stop for almost two weeks.  Besides appearing at press 
conferences, award ceremonies, and rallies, the heretofore 
shadowy leader has been photographed meeting--and shaking 
hands--with heads of the major political parties.  These 
meetings span the political spectrum, including the Maoists' 
ideological rival Madhav Nepal, General Secretary of the 
Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxist Leninist (UML), as 
well as the aristocratic President of the right-wing, 
pro-Palace National Democratic Party, Pashupati SJB Rana. 
Following their large public rally in Kathmandu on April 3 
(Ref B), Bhattarai and other members of the Maoist 
negotiating team took their individual shows on the road, 
with each hosting a "mass gathering" in five separate 
locations on April 7:  Bhattarai in far-western Nepalgunj; 
military commander Ram Bahadur "Badal" Thapa in south-central 
Chitwan; Krishna Mahara in southern Rupandehi; Matrika Yadav 
in southeastern Rautahat; and Dev Gurung in north-central 
Pokhara. 
 
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CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, 
PRE-DIALOGUE DEMANDS DOMINATE 
------------------------------- 
 
3.  (SBU) Bhattarai and his colleagues have used their new 
public podiums to underscore certain recurrent themes. 
First, they assure their listeners that they are serious 
about dialogue this time, their willingness to come to the 
table impelled by the "strategic balance" between Government 
of Nepal (GON) forces and their own.  Second, they emphasize 
(and re-emphasize) throughout their remarks that a 
constituent assembly aimed at drafting an entirely new 
constitution is the only way out of the current impasse.  The 
present constitution is dead, they assert (responsibility for 
that death is variously assigned to the Palace or the 
political parties, depending upon the audience); a new one 
must thus be written from scratch.  They generally decline to 
be drawn into any discussion of the mechanics of how a 
constituent assembly would operate or what specific parts of 
the current constitution must be changed, other than to 
suggest the absence of any "unalterable elements."  (Note: 
Most observers interpret this as a direct reference to the 
monarchy and multi-party democracy, both of which are 
stipulated in the "unalterable" preamble to the current 
constitution.  End note.)  Third, they accuse the GON of 
obstructing dialogue by delaying the formation of its 
negotiating team and by refusing to meet the Maoists' more 
recent demands, including the release of five prominent 
Central Committee members still in GON detention.  Fourth, 
they threaten a return to violence if the peace initiative 
fails.  Other subsidiary themes frequently surface as well, 
including appeals to the international community to meet 
Maoist negotiators and to support their call for a 
constituent assembly (often coupled with the contradictory 
demand that foreign powers not interfere in the peace 
process).  Another consistent call is for armed Maoist cadres 
to be absorbed into a new national army (the name of which, 
of course, should then be changed from the Royal Nepal Army 
to the People's Army) placed under the control of "the 
people." 
 
4.  (SBU)  On the few occasions when the five Maoist 
negotiators have discussed their thinking in detail, 
contradictory statements inevitably emerge.  For example, 
Krishna Mahara told a gathering of prominent local 
businessmen that the Maoists do not oppose a market economy. 
A few days later, Dev Gurung gave another group a 
diametrically different interpretation of Maoist ideology, 
concluding that the Maoists, if in power, would indeed oppose 
a market economy and nationalize the nation's means of 
production.  A few days subsequently, Baburam Bhattarai, in 
an apparent effort to explain the contradiction (or perhaps 
to confuse his bewildered audience still further) offered the 
opaque pronouncement that the Maoists differentiate between 
"nationalist" and "anti-nationalist" capitalists, favoring 
the former and opposing the latter.  (Note:  Many observers 
interpreted "anti-nationalist" as a thinly veiled threat 
against the influential Indian Marwari business community 
here.  End note.) 
 
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GOVERNMENT COMPARATIVELY QUIET 
------------------------------- 
 
5.  (SBU)  Throughout the Maoists' media blitz, the GON has 
been comparatively quiet, as if intentionally ceding center 
stage to the insurgents.  With the exception of the King's 
public address in the far west on April 4 (Ref C), the GON 
appears to have made little effort to counter the insurgents' 
public relations campaign.  When GON representatives do speak 
publicly, their remarks and actions seem only to reinforce 
Maoist claims.  On March 30 Narayan Singh Pun, Minister for 
Physical Planning and GON-appointed negotiator, conceded 
publicly the Maoist argument that there are "two state 
powers" in Nepal and averred that there is "a balance of 
power between the government and the Maoists."  The Maoists 
are not terrorists, Pun further elaborated, because 
terrorists have "no political base, whereas the Maoists were 
supported by a huge mass of people."  The following day, 
Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand shared the dais with 
Baburam Bhattarai at a press function, wherein the event 
sponsor referred to Bhattarai as an "alternate prime 
minister" and Chand was photographed grinning and pumping the 
hand of the Maoist second-in-command (Ref C).  (Note:  The PM 
was apparently not forewarned that Bhattarai would be there 
and was reportedly furious for being blind-sided.  End note.) 
 Not until one week later, on April 6, did Minister Pun pose 
any objection to the barrage of Maoist accusations and 
demands, noting that the GON "may not" accede to the 
insurgents' call to release Maoist detainees as a 
pre-condition to dialogue. 
 
6.  (C)  Sources close to the Palace have told us that the 
GON strategy for now is to spin out the pre-dialogue phase 
for as long as possible.  The GON believes that time is on 
its side, and that every day of peace under the ceasefire 
increases popular distaste for a return to violence and thus 
erodes support for the Maoists.  The strategy is to eschew 
engaging in lengthy, contentious public debates with the 
Maoists about their particular issues--from the constituent 
assembly to integrating the People's Army--and focus instead 
on broad-brush humanitarian and social matters likely to gain 
public sympathy.  Hence the GON delay in naming members to 
its negotiating team, let alone discussing possible agenda 
items for eventual talks.  One GON source, elucidating this 
strategy, indicated that by giving the Maoists free rein to 
expound their doctrine in the media, the GON hopes to expose 
to the public the shallowness and hypocrisy of the 
insurgents' ideology.  There is also an expectation in 
government and media quarters that the sustained limelight 
will strip away the Maoists' mystique as secretive 
revolutionaries and reveal them, like other party leaders, as 
self-serving politicians. 
 
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ARMY REACTION 
-------------- 
 
7.  (C)  While the GON is keeping its own counsel for now, 
the leadership of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) is privately 
letting its dissatisfaction with the situation be known.  On 
April 7, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen. Pyar Jung Thapa 
complained to the Ambassador that the RNA had agreed only to 
a ceasefire--not to carte blanche for the Maoists to travel 
all over the country and hold mass meetings.  He also 
expressed dismay at the number of Maoist prisoners that have 
been released since the ceasefire.  (Note:  The total number 
of prisoners released thus far is unclear.  The Home Ministry 
has estimated that 100 detainees have been set free but is 
awaiting data from the districts to finalize the tally.  A 
source at the Supreme Court estimated the total to be 200. 
End note.)  In the meantime, Thapa said that the RNA is using 
the ceasefire to recruit and retrain. 
 
8.  (C)  National Security Council member Maj. Gen. 
Rookmangud Katuwal expressed concern that Maoists in the far 
west are exploiting the ceasefire to increase their strength. 
 Now that the security forces have reduced their patrols, the 
insurgents can intimidate and extort money from the local 
population at will, Katuwal charged.  The insurgents have 
busily been organizing multiple mass meetings to broadcast 
their ideology, as permitted now under the ceasefire, while 
the mainstream political parties, whether through fear, 
inertia, or both, have been idle.  The Maoists are filling 
the vacuum left by the legitimate political parties at the 
local level, Katuwal worried. 
 
------------------------ 
POLITICAL PARTIES: 
ON THE SIDELINES AGAIN 
------------------------ 
 
9.  (SBU)  It is not only at the local level, however, that 
the insurgents are crowding the mainstream political parties 
out of the public arena.  The Maoist media frenzy has pushed 
the political parties, already worried that the King's 
appointment of an interim government has rendered them 
inconsequential, even further onto the sidelines.  Bhattarai 
followed up his initial meetings with the party leaders by 
blasting them in print for their mismanagement of democracy 
over the past 12 years.  In his April 3 public rally in the 
capital, Bhattarai belittled them as "dinosaurs" incapable of 
changing with the times.  Despite their lack of support for a 
constituent assembly, leaders of the major parties have not 
offered a well-reasoned rebuttal to the proposal or a defense 
of the constitution under which all of them have served as 
Prime Ministers or Members of Parliament.  Nor have they 
proposed other issues from their own parties' agendas (i.e., 
equal rights for women, land reform, international relations) 
to be included as topics for GON/Maoist dialogue in the 
future.  What little press time leaders of the two largest 
parties can garner these days is, for the most part, spent 
criticizing both the King and the Maoists for excluding them 
from dialogue without, however, offering any suggestions of 
what they would contribute. 
 
10.  (C) Some of the parties' inactivity may be due in part 
to continued Maoist intimidation at the local level.  The 
Indian Ambassador reports that Gurkha Welfare Officers spread 
across the country have found that the Maoists, still armed, 
are using the threat of violence to extract financial 
"contributions" and enforce participation at political 
rallies.  The insincerity of Maoist claims to support 
democracy, he asserts, is proven by their intolerance of 
political competition in the countryside. 
 
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COMMENT 
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11.  (C)  Despite the Maoists' public prolixity over the past 
two weeks, they seem determined not to be drawn into the 
specifics of any of their proposals or to describe what a 
Maoist-led government might look like.  For now, they are 
keeping their agenda intentionally vague and their 
pronouncements purposely elliptical so as to confuse and 
divide even further their politically factionalized 
audiences.  To a certain degree, their strategy may be 
working.  Despite the lack of popular enthusiasm for the 
proposed constituent assembly, the political parties and 
members of civil society are spending most of their time 
arguing among themselves about what the Maoist proposals 
entail, instead of uniting in a well-reasoned defense of the 
current constitution or of multi-party democracy.  The 
political parties' performance thus far has been particularly 
disappointing.  At this crucial watershed in Nepal's 
democratic history, they are focusing all of their energies 
on complaining about the interim government and reiterating 
their refusal to work with it, thereby cutting themselves out 
of any role in shaping the agenda for dialogue with the 
Maoists.  The party leaders' paralysis in the capital could 
cost them dearly at the local level, leaving the Maoists to 
fill the vacuum. 
 
12.  (C)  Comment continued:   Throughout the Maoists' media 
blitz lies one consistent subtext:  that the insurgents 
represent a legitimate political and military "force" on a 
par with the GON and entitled to the same status and 
recognition.  Their efforts to be photographed meeting GON 
and political leaders and their outreach to the international 
community are clearly intended to reinforce that message. 
The GON, on the other hand, apparently is hoping that the 
Maoists will talk themselves out, wearying the public with 
their empty rhetoric and ultimately revealing the hollowness 
of their proposals.  The Government reasons that prolonging 
the ceasefire will build up an internal momentum and popular 
expectations of peace that will make it exceedingly difficult 
for the Maoists to mobilize their rank-and-file for a return 
to violence.  That strategy may be a sound one up to a point. 
 If the RNA is using the ceasefire to retrain and recruit, it 
can be safely assumed that the Maoists are doing the same. 
The danger remains that the GON may overplay its hand, 
stalling a bit too long and squandering the momentum toward 
negotiations it has worked hard to develop. 
MALINOWSKI