In just three years since March 2003, more than 100,000 Iraqis, Americans, and others have died due to the US invasion, the invasion that just about destroyed modernity (from losses of women's rights to emergence of sectarian battles) in Iraq. Amnesty International says that about 12,000 -- counting all who are killed, from Maoists to villagers suspected of aiding Maoists to the King's police, military, and civilian supporters -- have perished in Nepal in its decade-long civil war. Iraq's and Nepal's populations are about the same: Iraq, 26,074,906; and Nepal, 27,676,547. It seems to me that we are the ones who are living in a country whose government unleashed messianic brutality (and it must be said that Washington has also supported Nepal's monarchical dictatorship: "Washington, which considers the Maoists a "terrorist" group, currently provides about US$45 million a year in mostly economic but some military aid. In the past two years, it has provided about $20 million in aid and training to the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA)" <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GB15Df05.html>).
Besides, the demand of the general strike, supported by the seven parliamentary parties and the Maoists alike, was not, "Dictatorship of the Proletariat!" or "Down with Capitalist Roaders!" but the abolition of monarchy and the election of a constituent assembly -- long overdue demands (overdue by more than two centuries!) imho. Those are the demands that the Maoists and the parliamentary parties agreed upon last November: <http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/03/20/stories/2006032009900100.htm>. Such are the minimum requirements of modernity.
Since I last posted on this subject here, the King improved his concession from allowing the parties to pick Prime Minister to reinstatement of Parliament, and the parliamentary party leaders (pressured by Washington, et al.), once again, retreated, accepting the status quo ante and breaking the agreement with the Maoists: "They [Maoists], however, expressed commitment to the 12-point agreement signed with the seven parties and criticised the parties for accepting the reinstatement without consulting the rebels. The 'so-called king's address' had failed to address their key demand for a republic and elections to a constituent assembly that could water down the monarch's sweeping powers during national emergencies, they said" (at <http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200604251756.htm>).
It looks like, in Nepal, as well as in many other places, people would have to turn as far left as the Maoists to find a force in favor of modernity.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>