Author: Yubaraj Ghimire
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 1, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kishenji-&-nepals-maoists-met-secretly-in-india-last-month/535818/0
Despite repeated denials by top Nepali Maoist
leaders that they have no "working relationship" with Maoists in
India, there's information that the two parties did meet - as recently as
early this month. This has significant implications at a time when New Delhi
is planning a concerted campaign against the Maoists.
Rajdhani, a national newspaper here, has reported
that senior leaders from both sides, including Kishenji - CPI (Maoist) leader
currently holed up in West Bengal and considered to lead the group's operations
in the east - and Indra Mohan Sigdel 'Basanta' from the Communist Party of
Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) met at an undisclosed location in India between October
8 and 11.
This is the first such meeting after the two
sides met under the aegis of the CCOMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist
Parties and Organisations of South Asia), a grouping in which Indian and Nepali
Maoist parties are the major constituents.
The meeting, according to the report, was
a follow-up to a resolution of the CPN-M Central Committee three months ago
to hold regular interactions between CCOMPOSA and its global umbrella group,
the Revolutionnaire International.
While Indian Maoist leader Ganapathi recently
termed Nepali Maoists as "revisionist", Nepali Maoist leaders, including
Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, have said there is no working relationship
between the two parties.
The CPN-M has not yet said anything in public
about the recent meeting in India. Sigdel, also a member of the CPN-M's foreign
cell, is now back in Nepal after participating in the meeting.
The daily quoted Sigdel as saying that "only
routine issues" were discussed and that the two parties decided to "establish
a relationship" to better "understand each other."
