Correct approach will address insurgency

Updated: 20/12/2005 19:08 NST (+5:45 GMT) Current: 21/12/2005 11:22:58 NST Kathmandu

Dr Thomas A Marks
Dr. Thomas A. Marks is a political risk consultant based in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He is a scholar with hundreds of articles and research papers (including books on Maoist insurgencies worldwide) to his credit.
He frequently visits Nepal to study the ongoing conflict. Dr. Marks regularly contributes to numerous publications that deal with insurgency and terrorism.
He talked to P Rana of Nepaleyes on his recent visit here. Excerpts: :
How do you analyze the conflict in Nepal? Any likelihood of peace, or will one side prevail decisively?
Let us be frank: Miscues by all concerned have resulted in stalemate. The Maoists, having established themselves in rural areas, have come face-to-face with the structural realities underlying Nepali underdevelopment. The result is marauding gangs of young people who are rapidly becoming minor warlords. Maoist misbehavior and miscalculation have given them a rump state with the GDP of the Sahara
Desert and a sullen, resentful, captive population. Maoist illegitimacy, however, cannot be exploited by a state that has not resolved its own issues of legitimacy. These require little elaboration by me, save to state the obvious. Having proceeded erratically in its approach to the insurgency, the state finds its political
position weak and its security forces, stronger though they are, able to project power anywhere but unable to remain and consolidate gains. Instances of indiscipline remain common enough to negate the advantage provided by the Maoists’ own problems with indiscipline, unbridled kidnapping, murder, and robbery. The major political parties, hamstrung as ever by their lack of vision and determination to engage in
obstructionism, have decided that their battle with the monarchy takes precedence over all else. “Peace” is the card they are presently playing in their bid to return to power. Yet there is not an inkling that they have given any more thought now to the particulars of good governance than they did previously in their decade
of mismanagement. They simply state that they have learned their lesson. As for the foreign presence: it is fairly evenly divided between those working behind-the-scenes to bring down the royal government and those wishing “compromise” could be rendered into Nepali. In summation, no side is able to prevail decisively, and the likelihood is for more of the same.
If the Maoists somehow win and take over Nepal, can they sustain their radical regime given Nepal's geopolitical situation and the current international system?
As I have stated earlier in this forum, key to the nature of such a hypothetical regime is what the Maoists are really after. One thing for sure, they simply are not saying what the political parties claim they are saying.
This evidence is not hard to come by – the Maoists themselves disseminate it. Pris oners and captured documents confirm it. Leaving this point aside and moving further to address your question, it is noteworthy that no radical regime in the past century has been able to sustain itself, unless one places in that category
North Korea. Still, as with its predecessors, North Korea is collapsing. But in collapsing, radical dictatorships have always functioned as killing machines. This is integral to the nature of the beast. They ultimately find themselves isolated, unable to go on. In the short-term, though, such regimes can find support for their
crimes. Simply look south, where on the 16th (of this month) the Indian legal Marxists rallied in support of not only Pyongyang but of those other shining examples of democracy and development – Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela – and the Nepalese Maoists and their Seven-Party Alliance pseudo-comrades! India itself,
winking at the actions of left-wing members of the ruling coalition, is foolish in thinking it can “buy off” the Nepali Maoists, even as New Delhi’s own Maoist problem surges.

You have intensively studied the conflict in Colombia. Do you see parallels between Nepal and Colombia? Can we learn anything?
Both major insurgent groups in Colombia see themselves as Marxist-Leninist: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN. They are not Maoist but advance many of the same hackneyed slogans and programs as does the CPN (M). FARC does utilize for its operational doctrine the same “people’s war” approach as the Nepalese Maoists, so one sees a close
correspondence in developments on the ground. In fact, by mid-1998 in Colombia, elimination of police presence, attacks upon government main forces, and lack of national strategy and planning had produced a serious situation that some saw as stalemate. That events have turned around so dramatically does offer
lessons for Nepal. A federal system of democracy, based upon maturing local autonomy, especially at the local level, produced a superb wartime president in Alvaro Uribe. He was able to implement an integrated, multifaceted strategy to Colombia’s challenges by using a greatly reformed military as the shield behind
which social and economic development could further political legitimacy. Negotiations are part of Uribe’s approach, but all has depended upon security forces that, in 2005, are better than those of most NATO member states – and only vaguely resemble those of, say, 1995, when the situation began to deteriorate.
Defense experts in Nepal say the government lacks coherent military strategy to defeat/contain the insurgency. What advice would you offer to the government?
Any military strategy must exist only to facilitate the political struggle, which in turn includes the economic and social campaigns. The Maoists, as the counter-state, are quite aware of this and have played their cards rather better than the state. The generic advice is as simple in concept as it is complex in implementation. A
counterinsurgency campaign gets in place that which is correct and sustainable, then it plays for the breaks.
A “correct” approach is one that addresses the causes of the insurgency. Legitimacy is always the center of gravity, certainly it is in this case. A “sustainable” approach is defined by the state itself, most particularly in terms of human and fiscal cost. “The breaks” come from those shifts in internal and/or external
circumstances that lead to a change in the correlation of forces. Countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Peru have all been through this process. Operationally, what they did was set in motion a plan that built upon local democratic capacity, sound governance, micro-development, and social equality in order to mobilize the state against the Maoist “new order.” They all articulated a vision. It is not enough to fight against something; you must fight for something. If you can’t state why you fight, you’re lost.

Do you, as an expert see the insurgents serious about peace and their commitment to multi-party democracy this time?
What is noteworthy about Maoist insurgencies is that they say and advocate the same things – and they all claim they will be “different,” avoid the crimes of the past. Unfortunately, the crimes are part and parcel of the structural “answer” they advance to society’s ills. It’s simply too easy, under a dictatorship of the
proletariat, by whatever cover name, to stop trying to convince people and to kill them instead. Yes, the Nepali Maoists have stated that they will be different. Yet their strategy has been textbook in all its particulars, right down to the present use of nonviolent means to accomplish violent ends. They see themselves at an epochal moment when they can play Mr Outside to the seven parties Mr Inside, classic
salami tactics of the first (Leninist) order. This is also what they are telling their people. Does this mean there is no room for accommodation? Certainly not – but not under the terms of reference as tabled by the UML, claiming to faithfully represent what the Maoists have undertaken. The UML is either naïve or quibbling. The
Maoists have stated quite clearly that “absolute democracy” – which means ousting the monarchy – is to be achieved by a united front (they use other terms) of themselves and the seven-parties. That doesn’t sound like compromise.
Do you think the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) is under equipped to deal with the rebels? If yes, what does it need? Leadership, strategy, materials or all of them?
RNA needs to be part of a national strategy for democratic governance. Tangible weapons are secondary to intangible ones, such as leadership and planning. Operationally, RNA has not yet accepted that there is no way around the classic force-multiplication conundrum inherent to counterinsurgency save through
mobilizing local forces. Call them Home Guards, call them neighborhood watch; debate all you like whether they are to be armed with their agricultural implements, firearms, radios, or simply whistles; when all is said and done, security forces must duplicate what the Maoists have done – mobilize a mass base. It is Maoist
crimes that allow this to be done, whether one talks about the Thai Maoists’ attacks upon the monarchy, or the Philippine Maoists’ attacks upon restored democracy, or the Peruvian Maoists’ savagery. Nepal’s Maoists have behaved in similar fashion, despite the efforts of their apologists to paint them as Robin Hoods. What is needed, then, is not weapons as I believe you have in mind but rather the ultimate weapon (ask the Maoists!), mobilization. But mobilization only works if it grows out of democratic capacity. The Maoists have shown that their version of society is youth gangs led by apostate teachers and politicians from the old-order. A Nepal that is to stand against that version must be a Nepal that grows out of the
demand for democracy but channels it into constructive action, such as development of hydropower. Notice where we’ve come: mobilization comes from local democracy extending to national democracy; it comes from enforcing the already passed laws of social equality; it comes from finding a means to deal with corruption and to institute good governance; it comes from economic development that will be built upon
micro-development. And that micro-development needs to move beyond the tired solutions of the development community and tap the “liquid gold” that makes Nepal second in the entire world in hydropower “reserves.” As odd as it sounds, this country should be an Asian Switzerland, not a conflicted basket case.
Realizing that is what counterinsurgency is all about – the RNA has to provide the shield behind which is happens.

Has the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) lost much popular support? If this is so, would you like to suggest anything on how an embattled army can manage its image?
In any conflict of any sort, whether a civil rights campaign or general warfare, information shapes reality. That is why no state can simply state, “We allow a free press,” and leave it at that. Even before the Maoist insurgency began, Nepal’s media were only just beginning to come to grips with issues of accuracy, accountability, and professionalism. In no area were they more deficient than in knowledge of conflict. Add to this an isolation bred of position, and you have a recipe for what you see today, a mix of the very good and the very, very bad. RNA, early on, produced some personalities who demonstrated an understanding that media were no longer an annex to the operations order, rather the very oxygen which all involved in the struggle breathed. These RNA personalities were targeted by the Maoists, consequently their policies languished. In targeting them, the Maoists knew very well what they were doing. The result today is the active hostility of much of the media to anything save parochialism, whereby even standard issues of state
interest and responsibility are considered an infringement upon “freedom of the press.” Combine this with the “learning curve” that the security forces have been going through in moving from a peacetime army to one on a war footing; add the involvement of international human rights organizations and their own narrow
view of “human rights,” and the result is on full display here. The security forces are labeled the enemy.

As a US citizen, do you think the US government should provide military aid to Nepal? Is there any US interest involved in either helping Nepal defeat the insurgency or letting the Nepali government fend for itself?

Yes, the US has and should continue to assist Nepal. Military aid to a legitimate government is part and parcel of that. It is the question of legitimacy, as determined by our law, that places the US in the difficult position it now occupies. On the one hand, it has long been a major force for development in Nepal. On the
other hand, security assistance is a normal part of our relations with the country. Now, amidst the conflict we are discussing, one can appreciate the delicate line any embassy must walk. It wants things “to work out.” Ironically, all the elements necessary for compromise would seem to be present – but men of good will, shall
we say, are in short supply. But let us end where we began, by speaking frankly: you can’t believe in Maoism and not have given up your critical faculties. You can’t claim to be a citizen of a global community in this day and age yet put up pictures of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Why not add Hitler? Or Pol Pot? In that
sense, the Maoists have played their cards very poorly, because they claim to be “good guys” even as they wave the bloody red banner responsible for the greatest crimes humanity has ever witnessed. Thus the US, while willing to examine tactically all viable forms of compromise, strategically will remain committed to a set
of principles and their tangible expression that is quite the opposite of those trumpeted repeatedly by the Maoists. If the Maoists are serious about compromise – and the UML, for that matter – let them put away the butchers’ pictures and furl up the flag of tyranny – and walk like democrats rather than simply talk.