Author: Yubaraj Ghimire
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 8, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/peace-process-a-tactic-armed-rebellion-to-follow/538660/0
Introduction: Nepal Maoist leader Baburam
Bhattarai says the state needs to be destroyed, replaced
Participation of the United Communist Party
of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) in the peace process in Nepal is just a "tactic"
and another round of armed clash to capture state power is not far away, Baburam
Bhattarai, key ideologue of the movement, said.
"Our party is clear that the state needs
to be totally destroyed and replaced by the new state... our party feels that
after formulation of the strategy of people's war and general insurrection,
we will be able to mobilise people in a mass upsurge and insurrection to abolish
this state," he said.
Bhattarai made this revelation to the journal
of the World Peoples Resistance Movement (Britain and Ireland)-a sympathiser
of the Maoist struggle in Nepal.
"What we have said is that we would align
with the bourgeois democratic parties to abolish the monarchy. And after the
abolition of the monarchy, then the contention would be between the bourgeois
forces and the proletarian forces. A new field of struggle would start. That
was clearly stated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the subsequent interim
constitution and other documents we passed," he said.
The interview in the journal is likely to
bring Maoist sincerity in the ongoing peace process into question. What makes
the disclosure sensational-as much as Prachanda's leaked videotape asserting
that peace process was only tactical-is Bhattarai's claim that the party is
currently waiting for confusion among the bourgeoise political parties in
Nepal, and the imperialistic forces to sharpen, so that that it can strike.
He said that the Maoists would continue to
fuse military and political tactic to capture state power. "To break
with the old mode of production and leap into a new one, you have to break
all the relations within the state backed by the army. And that inevitably
requires the use of force. This is a law of history and a basic principle
of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism which nobody can revise. If you revise or abandon
it, then you are no longer a Marxist," he asserted.
"By adhering to this basic principle,
we waged armed Protracted People's War (PPW) from 1996 to 2006. But after
2006 we made a certain departure in our tactical line. Some people are confused
about this and think we have abandoned PPW forever," he said.
Bhattarai said the party neither surrendred
the principle of Protracted Peoples War (PPW) nor the arms it had in possession
during the years insurgency. "We had formulated the People's Liberation
Army (PLA), we had our base areas, we had a lot of mass support, and all this
we have been able to preserve... The PLA is still with us, and the arms we
collected during that war are still with us within the single-key system,
monitored by the United Nations team, but basically the key is with us and
the army is with us and we have never surrendered," he said.
The party, he said, would start the next phase
of movement after forming a revolutionary united front of the patriotic, democratic
and left forces led by the Communist Party.
