[lbo-talk] Nepal

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 4/26/06, Joel Wendland <joelrw at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Yoshie writes:
> >
> >This is a point almost always evaded by the corporate media, but
> >aren't a large majority of Nepalis killed during the civil war,
> >whether they are younger or older than 18, killed by the King's
> >forces?
>
> Another approach to this issue in a general way might be to ask what kind of
> state is created by any kind of armed insurgency. It may just be that the
> 20th century history of socialism has important lessons about this. Indeed,
> a more recent example: What would Venezuela be like if the military-based
> coup Chavez led in 1992, no matter what its good intentions, had succeeded?

But Venezuela was already a republic before Hugo Chavez came along,
whereas Nepal, (like the Gulf States, Afghanistan, etc.), still isn't.

 The natures of the armed forces in Venezuela and Nepal are quite
different, too (about Venezuela's military, see
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2841>).

Before the King seized his emergency powers, during the Royal
takeover, and after the King made the offer to reinstate the
Parliament, one thing has and still remains the same: the Royal
Nepalese Army, etc. serve under the King's direct command, not the
Parliament's.  It seems to me that's what needs to change first of
all.  As long as the King retains the control of the military, the
Parliament essentially is a show, existing only on the King's
suffrance.

Or rather foreign powers' sufferance: Nepal's budget would be in the
red, without foreign grants and loans, as you can see at
<http://www.fncci.org/text/budget.html>; and "Almost 70 percent of the
military aid received by Nepal comes from India" (at
<http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2205/stories/20050311001610000.htm>).

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>