Beginning on December 20,
the Maoists staged a nationwide bandh (general strike) that has resulted in violent clashes between Maoists
and riot police and further weakens the peace process that began almost three
years ago.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal
Prachanda, the Maoists’ leader also hinted that this could lead to an
indefinite general strike, should the current government fail to meet his party’s
demands.
The protest began with a
torch protest on Saturday evening and gained momentum the following day.
Security conditions were tightened, vehicular movement came to a halt and the
clashes ensued.
Policemen, who were trying
to clear a blocked road in the nation’s capital, came under attack with hurled
bricks and stones thrown by the Maoist crowd. The police responded with batons,
water cannons and teargas in an effort to gain control of the situation. 21
policemen were injured, one critically. Maoists’ claimed that 100 of their
members were injured.
Maoist “civil protest” also
erupted into vigilante-type vandalism. Buses, trucks and cars were torched.
Although the Maoists promised not to obstruct the movement of press vans,
vehicles carrying diplomats, tourists and medical personnel, widespread
disruption occurred, including one vehicle filled with hospital staff
responding to an emergency call from Shahid Gangalal Heart Center. The
ambulance driver was severely injured.
Violence was not confined to
Kathmandu.
In Gorkha District, members
of the YCL, the paramilitary youth wing of the Maoists, beat up Nepali Congress
leader Dhruba Panta, leaving him in critical condition.
In Nepalgunj, Kaviiraj
Karki, a Mugu journalist, was stoned and pummeled within an inch of his life
while photographing the strike. His camera was destroyed and he remains in
critical condition with severe head wounds.
The Maoists latest efforts
render Nepal’s fragile peace process increasingly dubious. Time is running out
for the nascent republic that now has just five months to draft a people’s
constitution and implement it on May 28, 2010.
Information and
Communications Minister Shankar Pokhrel called the bandh a gross violation of the peace agreement. Prime
Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who just returned from the Copenhagen summit,
decried the Maoists, saying that their movement was now not even in their
control.
The last few days do smack
of “mob rule”, even though the
Maoists only secured 40% of the popular vote during the 2008 elections. At this
point, a showdown – which is of course what the Maoists have wanted ever since
they lost control of the government earlier this year -- seems inevitable. Kunda Dixit, editor of Nepali Times,
described the Maoists’ game plan thusly:
"The end goal is, let the protests
escalate, frustrations of the public, let it boil over, and then they can swing
into power through street protests or an urban uprising. That seems to be the
plan at least as far as the hardcore is concerned."
Does the coalition government have the ability to frustrate this plan? The days of political impasses are numbered. Something has to give.
And soon.
……………………………….............………………………………………..
