arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

For the past seven years the country of Nepal has been wracked by an insurgent "People's War." The war was initiated in February 1996 in the communist-dominated Rolpa and Rukum districts in far western Nepal when the dominant landlord forces used police force to thwart the communists from participating in parliamentary and local elections. Building on the desperate frustration borne of decades of violence against Nepal's mostly rural population in the name of "development," the war has quickly spread throughout Nepal with widespread popular support in the countryside as well as strong sympathies from urban populations frustrated with the corruption, greed, and lack of vision of the urban-based client development-regime. Starting in the "base areas" carved out in the west, the insurgents have extended their control to all the countryside, leaving just major urban areas and district headquarters in military control of the state.

From this position of strength, the insurgents this last month opened up peace negotiations with the state with the aim of bringing about major reforms and true democratization of the state. Even as these negotiations are being initiated, however, the US government has made statements and taken actions that are undermining the possibility of reconciliation. These and other issues are discussed by Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, a central committee member of the Communist Party (Maoist), spokesman, and chief negotiator for the insurgents in an interview in Kathmandu.