Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Human Rights

NEPAL: Shortage of Weapons Hampers Army’s Pursuit of Maoists

Suman Pradhan

KATHMANDU, Apr 3 2005 (IPS) - Nepal’s over-stretched military is being further strained by rebel Maoists that over the weekend called a 11-day transport strike to blockade the capital Kathmandu. Already the rebels have burnt seven trucks on a key highway, disrupting traffic.

As a result, the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) has been forced to boost security along the key Prithvi Highway corridor that links the Nepalese capital to outlying parts of the kingdom. On Sunday, an RNA officer said security contingents had escorted 800 vehicles to and from Kathmandu in an effort to keep the supply lines open.

It’s fortunate that the Maoists, who have been fighting for a republican state since 1996, have announced only a 11-day blockade. According to analysts, any longer strike would have seen the hard pressed RNA struggling to control the highways because of low ammunition stocks.

An RNA officer, on condition of anonymity, admitted that the military has bullets and other ordinances stocks for only four months. That probably is just enough to foil the blockade, but clearly inadequate to hold the Maoists down for long.

It was for this reason that many in Kathmandu, including security officers, were looking forward to a key visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to boost military assistance to the beleaguered royalist military. But the Chinese foreign minister left on Apr. 1 without any promises of weapons assistance. In fact, the issue did not even figure in bilateral talks.

”I think you saw things far beyond that possibility,” Zhaoxing told journalists, just before departing Kathmandu. ”We never took up that topic (military assistance) … We haven’t touched that topic.”

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey, too, added: ”No no. We did not take up that issue at all.”

And with that, despite the diplomatic niceties surrounding the visit, the Chinese appear to have dashed the hopes of Nepal’s royal regime.

Whether that blow was intentional is open to interpretation, given that the royal regime had hyped up media speculation that China would be providing military assistance to Nepal.

Zhaoxing’s two-day visit had come at a time of extreme crisis in Nepal fuelled by the Maoist rebellion and King Gyandra’s Feb. 1 coup.

Nepal’s closest friends, including India, Britain, United States and European Union countries, had all criticised the coup and the emergency rule imposed by the king. India and Britain even publicly stopped any further military assistance to the royal regime, fearing that it would be used against pro-democracy protestors.

The U.S., which has supplied 20,000 M-16 rifles to the RNA, also refrained from providing fresh assistance. The three countries are Nepal’s primary military suppliers.

It was against this backdrop that royal authorities began to look elsewhere to meet the army’s immediate needs. And Pakistan and China figured prominently in the neighbourhood.

Just before the Chinese visit, former RNA chief of staff Gen. Satchit Shumsher Rana said, ”We should seek and accept military assistance from the Chinese.” And RNA generals leaked a report to a local newspaper saying that China had agreed to provide assistance to set up an ammunitions factory to manufacture bullets for the Indian and U.S.-made rifles the army uses in its counter-insurgency operations.

Moreover, some analysts said that by taking corrective measures such as closing down of the Dalai Lama’s office in Kathmandu in January, and the subsequent Nepali declaration of support for Beijing’s one-China policy, Nepal had opened the road for more Chinese cooperation.

”These measures come in the backdrop of attempted strangulation of Nepal by India backed by Britain and the United States for reviving anarchy in the name of democracy,” wrote Jan Sharma, a journalist close to the palace.

Pakistan too lent its voice. It sent an economic delegation to Nepal in late March with a five million U.S. dollar credit line. Some of that credit, Pakistan’s state minister for economic affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said, ”could be used by Nepal to buy weapons from Pakistan.”

Nepali officials refused to take that bait, and Khar left on Mar. 30 saying that Nepal had not made any military aid requests and the delegation’s meeting was not ”the appropriate body to discuss such matters.” That was followed by Zhaoxing’s visit and subsequent assertion that nothing military was discussed.

Clearly, analysts say, the royal regime’s attempt to court support from China is not having the desired impact in the military sphere.

”The regime seems to be caught in its own hype. Zhaoxing’s refusal to talk about military assistance indicates that China will not risk its international standing by militarily supporting a regime that many other powerful countries have shooed off,” a security analyst with the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) in Kathmandu, requesting anonymity, told IPS.

”Providing military assistance at this time would have indicated that China will have its own policy in South Asia, and that could have antagonised India to a great extent. China does not want any new antagonism. It wants peace on its borders so it can pursue economic progress.”

The Chinese however will continue to lend political and moral support to the king, as it has historically. Indeed, Zhaoxing invited King Gyanendra to address an economic summit in the city of Boao later this month.

While that may still annoy India and the western powers, it will not alarm them, as long as Beijing refrains from supplying weapons to Kathmandu.

”Any indication that China will supply the RNA with arms would lead to the crumbling of Indian confidence. Subsequently this will spiral into western opposition to King Gyanendra’s rule,” said a western diplomat.

For now though, that specter has passed. However a larger danger looms.

”If the RNA can’t get new weapons, it will either make it easier for the Maoists to win or turn the RNA inwards, resulting in more brutality and human rights abuses. The international community should weigh any such possibility with a careful recalibration of military assistance,” said the CNAS analyst.

 
Republish | | Print |

Related Tags



culpa mia libro pdf