"Yami"'s statements confirming, supposedly, the recruitment of homosexuals, brief, cryptic, and unsupported, is the only relevant thing in this reply that bear at all on Brian's concern. Recruitment of large numbers of women, childcare centers, etc., are commendable but not directly pertinent to acceptance of gays among the Maoists.
I find Ulhas' sources credible -- the line quoted is the old official Maoist line on homosexuality as it was the Stalinist line. And the Maoists have been decent on women's liberation ("Women hold up half the sky.") while being appalling about gay and lesbian liberation (capitalist decadence, blah blah) and also being generally extremely sexually puritanical about lots of sexual matters -- marriage, kinky sex, homosexuality, etc. (The old Russian Bolsheviks were very different about this,a s Brian pointed out, legalizing homosexuality, practicing "free love," etc.).
Finally it is NOT anticommunist to hold up the failures of self-styled communist movements to standards of human liberation. For example, in anther context, I think that decrying Stalinist political repression is a socialist requirement, not an anticommunist act.
--- John Mage <jmage at panix.com> wrote:
> Brian wrote:
> >> Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's only NGO fighting
> for gay rights
> > met a Maoist leader, Dev Gurung, to try explain
> the rights of gays,
> > lesbians and transgenders to him. The rebel
> leader reportedly said
> > that homosexuality was a byproduct of capitalism.
> "Under Soviet rule
> > and when China was still very much a communist
> state, there were no
> > homosexuals in the Soviet Union or China,"
> Gurung reportedly said.
> > "Now they are moving towards capitalism,
> homosexuals may have arisen
> > there as well. So homosexuality is a product of
> capitalism. " Under
> > socialism this kind of problem doesn't exist."
> >
> > Some thinking just never dies does it? Next
> thing you know "Subways
> > Are For Sleeping" will be revived on Broadway.
>
> Brian, be sceptical of this story. And be sceptical
> of NGOs until you
> know where their money comes from.
>
> It is just Ulhas vomiting up - as always when it
> comes to Nepal & India -
> anti-communist propaganda. The source, MJAkbar's
> sheet, is unreliable,
> and the story itself in a totally yellow journalist
> style does not quote
> the Maoists but hearsay accounts from unnamed third
> persons presented
> inside quotation marks, to fool the careless reader.
>
> In fact, for at least four years the Maoists have
> had openly homosexual
> cadre and boasted of it:
> -------
> Party woman
> Ghatna Ra Bichar, 18 June, 2003
> ...
> Five months into the ceasefire, Hisila Yami, Central
> Working Committee
> member and chief of the Women Department of the
> Maoist party, recently
> attended a meeting in Kathmandu. It was her first
> public appearance in
> eight years after she went underground.
> ...
>
> Yami said nearly 33 percent of the Maoist army were
> female, and that two
> had risen up the ranks to become brigade commanders.
> “In some cases men
> have abandoned weapons and run from encounters, but
> women have never
> done so. We won all the battles that involved a
> large number of women
> guerillas,” said Yami.
>
> The party not only arranges weddings between members
> but has also set up
> “childcare centres” around Rukum, Rolpa and other
> Maoist hotbeds.
> Literacy among Maoist women is highly encouraged.
> Yami also confirmed
> the recruitment of homosexuals. In a short
> conversation regarding
> monarchy, Yami said the crown could never be a
> symbol of Nepal’s unity.
> Yami wore military green shirt and pants. There was
> a conspicuous lack
> of personal bodyguards.
>
>
<http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/150/FromtheNepaliPress/2818>
> ----
> john mage
>
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