04-24-2006, 03:13 AM
xposting from BR..
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/30/...l?from=storyrhs
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> The Maoists could well win in Nepal but that would be a much bigger disaster, for they belong to the same tradition of ultra-egalitarian and anti-foreign extremism that animated the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) in Peru. Mercifully, the latter group never attained power, but between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge murdered about a quarter of Cambodia's population in a drive to exterminate everybody who was a "class enemy" or had been exposed to foreign influences.
"Comrade Prachandra", the 42-year-old former horticulture teacher who is the Nepali Maoists' leader, never gives interviews, <b>but the deputy leader, Baburam Bhattarai - whose PhD thesis was a Marxist analysis of Nepal's problems - was chilling when asked whether his movement's policies would be similar to those of the Khmer Rouge: "There is no independent and authentic account of events in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge available so far. Whatever is emanating from the Western media appears to be highly exaggerated." In other words, they are the same.</b>
If the Maoists win, an early Indian intervention might spare the Nepalese population the worst horrors of a Khmer Rouge-style genocide, but only at the cost to India of a long and thankless guerilla war in Nepal. Nepal is heading straight for hell, and nobody in the country seems remotely capable of stopping it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The "thankless war" is not one of the options that India has. It is the ONLY alternative. India CANNOT have maoists in power in Nepal - that will be a huuge disaster.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/30/...l?from=storyrhs
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> The Maoists could well win in Nepal but that would be a much bigger disaster, for they belong to the same tradition of ultra-egalitarian and anti-foreign extremism that animated the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) in Peru. Mercifully, the latter group never attained power, but between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge murdered about a quarter of Cambodia's population in a drive to exterminate everybody who was a "class enemy" or had been exposed to foreign influences.
"Comrade Prachandra", the 42-year-old former horticulture teacher who is the Nepali Maoists' leader, never gives interviews, <b>but the deputy leader, Baburam Bhattarai - whose PhD thesis was a Marxist analysis of Nepal's problems - was chilling when asked whether his movement's policies would be similar to those of the Khmer Rouge: "There is no independent and authentic account of events in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge available so far. Whatever is emanating from the Western media appears to be highly exaggerated." In other words, they are the same.</b>
If the Maoists win, an early Indian intervention might spare the Nepalese population the worst horrors of a Khmer Rouge-style genocide, but only at the cost to India of a long and thankless guerilla war in Nepal. Nepal is heading straight for hell, and nobody in the country seems remotely capable of stopping it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The "thankless war" is not one of the options that India has. It is the ONLY alternative. India CANNOT have maoists in power in Nepal - that will be a huuge disaster.