Nepal : Prachanda's Challenges

I spoke with these People's Liberation Army, PLA fighters a few weeks after the Maoists and the seven party alliance signed their historic ceasefire and power sharing agreement.

Each of these 18 year old combatants claimed to have killed over a dozen "class enemies."

They had just moved to a UN designated camp near Janakpur in South Nepal.

Both were sure the Maoists would sweep the constituent assembly polls and that the 250 year old monarchy and Nepal's feudal system would be rooted out.

" If the current ceasefire holds and Nepal becomes a republic I would like to join the army or become a political workers," one of them told me.
"What if it fails?" I asked.

" We are fighters and will go back to the jungles and take up arms and fight the class enemy till the oppressed people are not rid of their misery."

A few days later in January 2007, I met their supreme commander Pushpa Kamal Dahal known better by his nom de guerre Prachanda (The fierce one).

The man who spearheaded the maoist guerrilla movement in Nepal for most part of the last decade. An armed conflict that has left over 13,000 dead and many more wounded.

We where asked to wait at a small hotel in Kathmandu for our interview with Prachanda.

He appeared minutes after his men had checked and positioned themselves all around the hotel and its surrounding buildings.

" The king has many supporters and he would do whatever is in his powers to disrupt this process towards a republic. These supporters are powerful players both within Nepal and outside. " Prachanda told me.

" There can be no solution till Nepal becomes a republic. If the current process and the polls are free and fair, the people of Nepal will boot the king out," he added.

More than a year on Prachanda's party is on the verge of being declared the single largest in the constituent assembly...and he could very well be the very first president of the "Republic of Nepal"

But the road ahead is filled with many challenges. For one high inflation, unemployment and slow growth need to be fixed fast. The festering "Madheshi" armed rebellion in the Tarai region of south Nepal also needs urgent attention. Claims of underrepresentation and unfair sharing of resources there, could very well plunge Nepal into another phase of strife and conflict.