By Christopher Salzberg
Oh My News International World
Posted by Bulatlat.com
After a decade of conflict and more than 13,000 deaths, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Chairman Prachanda, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal and commander of arguably the most successful modern-day anti-feudal rebellion, has signaled an apparently abrupt ideological change of course. In an interview with Thomas Bell of the Telegraph, Prachanda declared that he and his party “are not fighting for socialism.” Interpreted in the article as a move to the “center,” the statement went conspicuously further. While reiterating his party’s opposition to feudalism, the communist leader claimed to be “fighting for a capitalist mode of production,” with the aim “to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists” [1].
Prachanda’s pro-industrialist comments mark a serious departure from his traditional anti-bourgeois, anti-imperialist stance. In an interview in February he made this position clear, emphasizing that his party’s “maximum goals” were socialism and communism, the “goals of all those accepting Marxism, Leninism and Maoism as philosophical and ideological assumptions.” Although admitting in the interview that, given “the international power balance and the overall economic, political and social realities of the country,” his party couldn’t attain those goals “at the moment” and thus “should be flexible,” no mention was made at the time of supporting profit-driven capitalist ambitions [2]. Later asked if the party, in its recent shift of policy, had not deviated from its communist roots, spokesperson for the rebel movement Krishna Bahadur Mahara made a distinction, clarifying that “It is not deviation but development” [3].
Strategic Interests
Mahara’s choice of words is revealing. Like Prachanda’s communist party, Nepal is currently entering a critical stage of “development.” King Gyanendra, who seized absolute power in February of 2005 only to have it revoked following pro-democracy protests in April, has since been demoted to the status of ceremonial monarch and has seen his salary cut by nearly two-thirds, the remainder of which he has reportedly taken to gambling away online [4]. The King’s departure has fundamentally altered the geopolitical balance of powers within Nepal, triggering a reorienting of strategic interests in surrounding regions as well as internationally. Principally, these are the interests of India, China and the United States.
Jo Johnson, in an article in the Financial Times, described the Indian and Chinese positions as having the potential “to become a very real source of friction.” In economic terms,
India has a strategic interest in ensuring the stability of the Himalayan sources of some of the subcontinent’s most vital rivers, among them the Ganges. Chronically short of energy, India also has a keen interest in developing Nepal’s underexploited potential to generate and export hydro-power.
The Nepalese population, being 90 percent Hindu, shares a common ethnic affinity with the people of India. The two countries also share a 1750-kilometer porous border. From a “domino theory” perspective — still much in evidence despite the end of the Cold War — Prachanda’s Maoist rebels represent a threat to India’s interests in that “a Maoist victory in Nepal would be a shot in the arm for Naxalite and other hard-left movements that are gaining ground in poor states” of India.
These concerns are reflected on Nepal’s northern border, where fears that “instability in Nepal would threaten China’s grip on Tibet” run high [5]. China, too, has strategic interests in Nepal, in part for its resources, but also politically as a protective buffer against Indian-U.S. military threats (notably nuclear ones [6]), and economically as a target for planned extension of its Tibetan railway service [7].
Prachanda’s recent appeals to “help us get into the capitalist mode of production” indicate a strategic awareness of these foreign interests. His assurances that “revolution or ideology cannot be exported,” while echoing earlier statements to the same effect, likewise evidently serve to calm fears that his party’s admitted “ideological relationship” with the Naxalites might, according to the U.S. State Department, “threaten stability in the region” [8,9], that is, jeopardize corporate profits.
Corporate Interests
Needless to say, it is in terms of the drive for these profits that U.S. influence on Nepal, very much palpable despite the geographic separation, can most readily be discerned. In the Country Commercial Guide Nepal FY 2000, the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service and the U.S. Department of State reported, “There are two main investment opportunities in Nepal: hydropower and tourism. While Nepal has some 83,000 megawatts in hydroelectric potential, less than one percent of this potential has been developed” [10]. Second only in scale to Brazil, this potential is driven by more than 6,000 of the world’s most forceful rivers and streams, collectively sending nearly 225 billion cubic meters of water every year from Nepal to the Bay of Bengal via India [11].
The “investment opportunities” of Nepal’s hydropower resources are vast indeed, potentially offering windfall corporate profits. Yet in the six years since publication of the Country Commercial Guide, despite numerous feasibility studies and controversial government offers and agreements [12], hydropower projects envisioned by the corporate sector have largely failed to materialize. The Investment Climate Statement of the U.S. Commercial Service for 2006 identifies key factors that led to this failure, namely, “political instability, a deteriorating security environment caused by the Maoist insurgency, a lengthy and cumbersome licensing process, and the failure to finalize a blanket electric power trade with India … the only potential market for any exportable electricity produced in Nepal” [13].
Recent sidelining of Nepal’s monarchy has put in place the necessary “enabling conditions” — the term used by the “developmental assistance” agency USAID [14] — to overcome these concerns, and reports indicate foreign investors have taken notice. As Bikash Sangraula writes, “Immediately after reinstatement of democracy in April this year, 11 foreign companies, most of them Indian, had submitted regular requests, letters of interest and detailed proposals to the ministry and the Department of Electricity Development (DoED)” [15]. A “milestone” power summit between India and Nepal held in Kathmandu in September, organized “to understand the ground realities” of hydropower investment, brought together leading power developers, contracting firms, equipment manufacturers, international lending institutions, and insurance companies [16]. According to sources of the Financial Express, agencies identified “projects that are ready for development and others in the pre-development stage,” as well as “models for financing.” Of note was the mention that “With the new government, which has recently taken over in Nepal, the developers in particular [also assessed] the security aspect which is quite crucial for the long term investments” [17].
A key attendee of the meeting, Indian ambassador to Nepal Shiva Shanker Mukherjee made the unprecedented move on Oct. 31 of meeting privately with Prachanda at the Indian Embassy, no doubt in an effort to address this “security aspect.” For his part, it is reported that the rebel leader made “a ‘request’ [of India] to play a ‘pro-active role’ in accelerating the ongoing peace process,” notably urging Mukherjee to release two senior rebel leaders jailed in India [18]. Prachanda subsequently accepted an invitation, earlier turned down, to address an upcoming summit titled “India: The Next Superpower?” The summit is to be held in New Delhi on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18 and features such prominent international figures as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and New York Mayor Rudolf Gulliani [19].
The convergence of interest in Nepal’s rebel leader at this moment in time is not accidental. Nepal is currently entering a critical stage of democratization, with plans to draft a new constitution featuring prominently in this process. Clause 126 of the existing constitution, which applies to any agreement involving natural resources, requires a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament at a joint sitting for ratification. Ananda Bahadur Thapa, former executive secretary of Nepal’s Water and Energy Commission, writes that “Clause 126 of the Constitution has been hailed by all quarters in Nepal as the most important provision that is helping to safeguard the vital national interest of our country” [20]. It is not hard to see how such a “safeguard” might serve to impede corporate interests, particularly in the case of large-scale hydropower projects.
