| Username |
Post |
| Biswo |
Posted
on 15-Mar-02 05:40 PM
Ah, this is friday again.
Before starting discussion, let me recall an incident which I think a lot of our
readers probably ignored. Maoists killed (again) one person in Arghakhachi. They
dissevered his head, and shot two times in his chest. It was a grisly attack, but
we have been, unfortunately, numbed these days. As Khagendra Sangraula once
wrote somewhere, we are now interested in 'thok'(stock) murders. Killing of a few
people (less than twenty, I guess) doesn't rivet our attention. 100 is probably a
magic number to attract attention. Or the scale of murder should be record setting.
What killed our compassion? And wonder what caused nice people of Nepal to
be transmogrified into killers?
-----------------
I was thinking about these murders, and I tried to remember those kids from my
village who joined rebels. I know three, two of whom are teenagers. We know
that premature kids are capable of doing heinous crime. In Cambodia, most of
the murders were committed by the premature kids with gun in their hands. In
Cultural revolution, students with red band in their forehead killed scientists and
writers. Bolsheviks were made up of students and workers. But again, to revert
to the main theme, every where the fountain of brutality is immature mind. And
the riffraff army of rebels in Nepal is mainly composed of these teenagers, some
of whom are conscripted directly from their school.
The only time I ever killed anything was in my childhood, when I killed a butterfly.
I won't dare to do that now. So, please whoever is out there and reading this
posting (invariably includes our regular visitor Prachanda), please remove the guns
from the hands of the kids. Otherwise, everyday we are forming geomatric series
of number of murdered people.
------
In a related note, I was thinking if vegetarians were the most benevolent people.
My thought was that they would flinch before hitting at someone. Unfortunately,
I now think I am wrong.Gujarat is home of Hindus who are mostly vegetarians.
I guess VHP stalwarts are also vegetarians. But they in brutal retaliation of
Sabarmati Express killing, ravished and killed Moslem women and kids some of
whom were less than a month old.
Oh, so many people were killed in the last two weeks alone. May peace be upon
them!
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| shanti |
Posted
on 15-Mar-02 07:00 PM
Again, Bishowji sends us a very thoughtful and interesting idea.
I think there is something when he says that the sheer scale and nature of torture, maiming and dismembering the Maoists are engaging is partly due to the young age of the perpetrators. Similar cruelty has been recorded in African civil wars too, where the teenage boys were the most savage and horrific to their victims. Perhaps it is to do with their psychology, or training or the training of the political commissar who impresses them that the enemy has to be killed with utmost prejudice.
It is sad how the Maoists are willingly cultivating a culture of cruelty and glamorising it among the young. We all know how that is tormenting the innocent civilians, unarmed villagers. It could one day turn on them too...violence can boomerang, those who live by the guns tend to die by the guns.
Om shanti!
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 16-Mar-02 03:17 PM
Dear Shanti:
Thanks for nice words, and your opinion.
I was looking at pictures of Time of Dec 1st week.(On frontpage is a pic of one
Afgan lady, oh, not that famous refugee girl found after 17 years by National
Geographic!) What struck me was one pic in which a fanatic is whipping a few
veiled ladies, and teenagers were laughing and enjoying that public torture!
I agree with you that they are in impressionable age and likely to be inculculated.
And what kind of society are we looking for in Nepal? Cream of sadist ones?
Now again, this dialogue thing is being floated by Prachanda. He proposes
'Ceasefire' and dialogue. After having lost all his credibility, Prachanda's call for
dialogue has miserably failed to generate any zest among Nepali people. And why
the hell do we need this damn 'ceasefire' again? Why not simultaneously fight and
converse?
I am also against any high profile dialogue anymore. Why give spotlight to circus
of false hope and betrayal? Wanna talk, talk with intermediaries, there are
aplenty.
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| Shanti |
Posted
on 16-Mar-02 03:50 PM
Bishowji,
I am wondering what prompted our comrade Prachanda to think of ceasefire at this time? Like you said, if he wants peacetalks, he can start talking while the righting goes on. I have a suspicion that despite the generally poor view of the Nepali security forces, especially after Dang, Achham, Dunai etc. setbacks, the Maoists must be feeling the heat of the police and the army after the emergency. I suspect Prachanda just wants to get the emergency over and the army return to its barrack so that his forces can have unhindered supremacy in the country.
If he is serious of peace, I think they must express their sincerity by laying down their arms. Otherwise, it will be like last year when under the pretension of ceasefire they continued terrorising the population, extorting money, recruitment and rearming. Nepali government will be wise not to fall for this trap again. Further military pressure should be maintained for a while untill their war making capability is more or less negated.
But Prachanda does not seem to be speaking alone, Girija is also saying the same thing..a very curious alliance..but sadly that is Nepali politics. So it seems we will be watching not only the battle in the hills but also the dirty politics of NC and UML...not to mention India to see how the Maoist ceasefire offer pans out. The timing is also significant, during his India visit, Deuba is reported to be asking the Indian leaders to control the Nepali Maoists in India. Rather than doing anything such thing, the Bihariji might suggest "Since Comrade Prachanda has very reasonably offered ceasefire, why don't you two patch up. It is better not to blame us, but if you want us to mediate between you like we did in 1950, we will be happy to oblige."
Let's see what happens,
Om Shanti
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Mar-02 11:44 AM
Looks like the RNA just routed comrades in Rolpa. May be comrade Prachanda was
prescient enough to see this coming. I am not joyous at this recent massacre, but
I hope comrades will understand this fact soon that we are killing our owns, we
are maiming our own people and we are fighting against our ownselves.
Govt has apprehended Shyam Shrestha and Co., and now it can very well
dispatch them to meet the top echelons of rebels to start informal talk while the
military offensive goes on. No nonsense anymore. He who wins in field will have
upper hand in dialogue. We don't need to buy any more arms, we don't need
to put up with any more 'sankatkaal'. Let's be ready for grand finale.I mean how
can this dialogue thing be justified while this ceasefire is just another way to
amassing ammos and train them at the right target?
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