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Rain of Shadows (Cont.)

Epilogue

By Thomas Laird

Kathmandu, July 30, 2001: In the aftermath of the massacre, as waves of Maoist terror expanded in the hills, expatriates at monsoon parties in Kathmandu started talking about where they would move if things got much worse. News reports of the murders, Maoists, riots, and curfews finally took the toll on tourism that had long been predicted. Yearly tourist arrivals fell by a thunderous 56 percent from June 2000 to June 2001. Airlines started cutting back their flight schedules.

During the second week of July the Maoists seemed unaware that terrorism was backfiring. In a spate of grisly attacks that marked the deadliest week of the People's War, they murdered nearly 100 police officers in remote outposts, and kidnapped 71.

None of this changed the facts. The Maoist party has 15,000 armed cadres and 1.5 million supporters, at best, according to senior communist leaders in Nepal. Twenty-three million Nepalis support a dozen other parties, and the Royal Nepal Army is 50,000 strong. The Maoists would not be a serious threat if only the elected government was functioning. But at this nadir for the nation Prime Minister Koirala's listless government did nothing.

Then, on July 13, for the first time, the Royal Nepalese Army went into action. No one could say who made the decision. The king? The prime minister? It was unclear. In the cascade of events after Birendra's death, the country seemed to be slipping toward civil war.

On July 19 Prime Minister Koirala resigned. But why at that moment, just after the army was deployed? Political observers in Kathmandu speculate that the real reason for his resignation was his inability to influence King Gyanendra's control over the army. Though the constitution of 1991 says that the prime minister ultimately controls the army, struggles behind the scenes seem to point in other directions. The secret agreement of 1991—which apparently left the king in sole command of the army, no matter what was in the constitution—was haunting the nation. Once again the palace had become a black box.

Despite confusion about why Koirala resigned, his resignation was a good thing. The Maoists said that his departure was a precondition for any peace talks. On July 22 Sher Bahadur Deuba, from Koirala's own ruling party, was named prime minister. The very next day a cease-fire was announced, only hours after the Maoists, in what may have been a warning to Deuba, butchered 17 police officers in a burst of terrorism.

But for now, as we head into the black heart of the monsoon, charcoal clouds hover low on the lush green mountainsides. The rice has been planted, and the peasants wait to see what crop nature will give them. There is little more that they can do—they are dependent on the rains. Will there be enough rain?

As Nepal waits out the summer monsoon it also waits, with the same fatalism, to see if there is anything for Deuba and the Maoists to talk about. If one listens to Maoist spokesman Baburam Bhattarai when he says that the Maoists want nothing less than the end of monarchy and "total state power for the oppressed masses," it is difficult see the cease-fire as anything but a lull before battle. But if one listens to Bhattarai, in the past few days, saying that the Maoists do not insist on a one-party dictatorship, then perhaps the arrival of Deuba spells the beginning of the end of the Maoist war. There is widespread hope that some uniquely Nepalese accommodation will be found to maintain the cease-fire—long enough for the nation, and tourism, to begin to recover from the blows that have fallen in the last two months.

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Thomas Laird has lived in Nepal for the past 30 years. His most recent photography book is The Dalai Lama's Secret Temple. He is completing his first book of non-fiction, Into Tibet. He can be reached at laird100@yahoo.com

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