Up close with Nepal's Maoists
By Robin Lustig
BBC's The World Tonight, Janakpur, south-eastern Nepal
This is how you get to meet the Maoist rebels here in the flat plains of southern Nepal.
In a town on the main east-west Mahendra highway, you arrange to meet two young men on a motor-bike.
You follow them, along the highway, then off the road onto a stony mud track that meanders along a dried-up river bed.
After 20 minutes or so, you notice a handful of young men and women, in uniform, walking casually along the side of the road.
They have red flashes on the lapels of their shirts. They are Maoist guerrilla fighters, and they look as if they have been walking for days.
Close to victory?
We get out of the car and follow a man who beckons us into the woods. We cross a stream, balancing precariously on a tree-trunk that serves as a makeshift bridge.
And then, suddenly, we see them, in a clearing: 200 or more Maoist fighters, men and women, lined up in ranks, each of them armed, drilling to barked orders from their brigade commander.
For the past 10 years, these fighters and their comrades - who are now thought to number up to 20,000 - have been steadily gaining in strength.
They control nearly 80% of the country, and now, after the dramatic pro-democracy protests last month, they are perhaps closer to victory than ever before.
The ones in front of us in the clearing do not look particularly terrifying.
They are young, most of them in their teens, some in their very early teens. Their drilling is, to put it politely, imprecise; their footwear ranges from Chinese-made trainers to rubber sandals and flip-flops.
Their commander tells me his name is Commander Alternative. Late 30s, fine-chiselled good looks, he would not look out of place in any army in the world.
But what are he and his young guerrillas doing all day, now that a three-month ceasefire has been declared?
"We are co-ordinating with local people," he says. "We are raising awareness about the new establishment that's going to come pretty soon. Of the people, by the people, for the people - people will be ruled by people, not by despots."
Slavish followers
So does that mean the struggle is nearly over? It's already lasted 10 years, and 13,000 people have lost their lives.
"No," says the commander. "The war isn't over yet, there's still more to come."
The Maoists insist that they are committed to multi-party democracy. They're not slavish followers of the Chinese model, they say.
And not far from the clearing where Commander Alternative's fighters are gathered, I meet another, rather smaller, group, cunningly concealed behind a village school.
Their political spokesman, who calls himself Commissar Content, spells out their vision for Nepal's future.
"We want a democratic republic for the 21st Century," he says.
"The common people should be able to rule themselves, the monarchy should be controlled by the people, and the political leaders who have been colluding with the feudal forces should not be in power.
"Power should be handed to the younger generation of leaders who are at the forefront of the movement for a democratic republic."
In other words, people like him? "Why not? We are the real democrats. If we don't win an election we'll definitely respect the decision of the people. But we are confident that our convictions will eventually win the day."
'Oppressed daughters'
Among this group I find Jyoti, a 20-year-old woman fighter, who wears a necklace of black glass beads with her camouflage uniform.
I ask her what she would have been doing if she had not joined the rebels - and her answer helps to explain why so many of Nepal's Maoist rebels are women.
"Because I was born as a girl, I would be under the control of my parents. They wanted me to get an education. But I wouldn't have been happy, because most of the women in the villages are the oppressed daughters of peasants.
"So if I sacrifice my career and my life for this cause and change the fate of women, it will be a positive thing."
Much depends now on Jyoti and her commanders and comrades. The Maoists are now part of the mainstream political process, negotiating terms for elections to a new constituent assembly.
They have won a lot, but will it be enough to satisfy those committed rebel fighters? The people of Nepal can only wait and hope.
Source: - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4761463.stm
Audio : - http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi?redirect=st.stm&news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&nol_storyid=4763843
