Roger604
Senior Member
"Nepal's Instability in the Regional Power Struggle"
As the first anniversary of King Gyanendra's sacking of the government passes, Nepal continues to slip further into instability, creating a power vacuum in which regional powers India and China compete for influence. The power struggle in Nepal consists of three domestic players: the king, the major parties of the former government, and the Maoist rebels of the countryside. In recent months, the political parties have aligned with the rebels, but each group maintains its own agenda.
China unconditionally backs the king in a costless gamble to gain influence in the Himalayan country that borders the Tibetan region. India believes that monarchal rule is inherently unstable in Nepal, and it threw its support behind the political parties after they were dismissed in February 2005. The U.S. and U.K. have supported India's position, partially to limit China's influence in the region.
It is not certain how the tri-polar power struggle will be resolved in Nepal. It is reasonably certain, however, that neither the king nor the rebels have the ability to gain control of the entire country. While the impoverished, landlocked country has little strategic value in itself, Nepal's position on the border of a potentially unstable region on China's western border and India's eastern boundary makes its instability important to the region's "great game."
Tri-Polar Power Struggle
With the exception of a brief period in 1959-60, democracy was first established in Nepal by King Birendra after he bowed to political pressure and instituted a constitutional monarchy in 1989. The parliamentary system was unstable and fractious from the beginning. In 1994, Prime Minister Koirala quit his post after defeat in the parliamentary vote, beginning the current period of political instability.
In 1996, the Maoist Communist Party of Nepal left the government and initiated its "people's war" against the monarchy in the countryside. Estimates of the area controlled by the rebels range from nearly 50 percent of the country (UNICEF) to 80 percent (Refugees International). The rebellion has been plagued by torture and brutality, at the hands of both the rebels and the security forces, and has killed approximately 12,500 people since 1996.
King Gyanendra unexpectedly assumed the throne in 2001 after the heir apparent shot and killed his parents and then turned the gun on himself. King Gyanendra quickly demonstrated that he would be even more willing than his predecessor to interject himself into the political process.
In 2001, the government and the rebels agreed to a truce, but the break in fighting only lasted four months. Following the resumption of violence, King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency and dismissed the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. He later instated Lokendra Bahadur Chand as prime minister, but months of protests from political parties left out of the government forced him to resign on May 30, 2003. The king tried his luck with another royalist, Surya Bahadur Thapa, as prime minister, but he was forced to quit after less than a year in the face of more protests.
On June 2, 2004, King Gyanendra reappointed Deuba as prime minister. Eight months later, the king fired the entire parliament, placing members under house arrest, and assumed absolute control on the pretense of using the full force of the military to end the Maoist rebellion in the countryside. The king's direct control of the military, however, has done nothing to resolve the rebellion.
The fractious parliamentary parties have put their differences aside since February 2005, and have agreed that reestablishing parliamentary control is the most important objective. In late August 2005, the political parties agreed to abandon the goal of achieving a constitutional monarchy, in favor of complete parliamentary control. This shift in goals brought the political parties inline with the stated goals of the Maoist rebels. [See: "Intelligence Brief: Nepal"]
In response to the shifted stance of the political parties, the Maoist rebels initiated a cease-fire, which ultimately lasted four months. This led to a November 22, 2005 agreement between the parliamentary parties and the rebels that essentially reduced the power struggle to two parties. The rebels and the seven main political parties called for an end to "the autocratic monarchy." However, there is still a great distance between the goals of the political parties and the rebels, and it is not clear what would become of the alliance if this goal were to be achieved.
While violence did dramatically decrease during the cease-fire, reports indicate that the rebels did not completely abandon their weapons. The government never agreed to the cease-fire, and continued its attacks against the rebels. At the start of this year, the Maoist rebels ended their cease-fire, claiming that the government's attacks forced them into a fighting position, and the level of violence has increased.
By aligning with the Maoist rebels, the parliamentary parties hoped to gain concessions from the king, but he proved inflexible. Instead, the king is taking an approach, first predicted by PINR in March 2005, of holding municipal elections on February 8 in order to legitimize his rule. [See: "Sacking the Government Brings International Attention to Nepal"]
Municipal elections would be the first step toward creating a parliament that he can dominate, but one strong enough to potentially garner the support of the United States and India. At this juncture, India and the U.S. are not ready to throw their support behind the king's plan. Instead, they are working in close collaboration with the parliamentary parties to reestablish a democratic government in Nepal. This is a strategy not without risk, and ultimately New Delhi and Washington might realign with the king in order to prevent an encroachment by China into India's sphere of influence.
India and China Compete in Nepal
Before the parliament's dismissal last February, India and the U.S. were the major military donors to Nepal. India's own Maoist rebels, the Naxalites, have proven to be an intransigent threat in half a dozen Indian states, including in a stronghold in the Bastar region of Chattisgarh. The possibility of a successful Maoist coup in Nepal, which would embolden their counterparts in India, caused the Indian government to provide extensive training and aid to the king's military. The U.S. would like to maintain close relations with Nepal in a strategy of encircling China and containing Beijing's influence in southwestern Asia.
After the government's dismissal, however, India's assessment was that the king would not be able to succeed in suppressing the Maoist rebellion and that his rule is inherently unstable. New Delhi immediately ended all military support to Nepal. Washington and London supported the decision with similar policies.
Since then, New Delhi has been in close contact with the main Nepalese political parties -- the Nepali Congress Party (N.C.P.) and the Communist Party of Nepal (U.M.L.) -- in order to coordinate their actions with the goal of reinstating parliamentary rule. Washington has played an important supporting role in coordinating the political parties' actions. For example, Indian leaders hosted a meeting in New Delhi in November 2005 that included U.S. Ambassador to Nepal James Moriarty, Madhav Kumar Nepal (a leader of the U.M.L.), and the N.C.P.'s Girija Koirala. Shortly thereafter, the November 22 agreement between the rebels and the Nepalese parliamentary parties emerged.
The alliance between the rebels and the political parties is troubling for New Delhi because it fears that such cooperation could strengthen India's own Maoist rebels. Also, the alliance makes less tenable the position taken by New Delhi, Washington and London of supporting the democratically elected government as the only way to end the Maoist rebellion.
India's support for the parliamentary parties is not without debate in New Delhi. There are reports that the Ministry of External Affairs' support for the parliamentary parties' negotiations with the Maoist rebels has been contested by the Home and Defense Ministries, which have placed their bets on King Gyanendra fearing that a Maoist takeover would destabilize regions within India that are fighting a domestic Maoist rebellion. While New Delhi continues to support the political parties, it is not clear that it will do so indefinitely. Should King Gyanendra's municipal elections, which will be boycotted by all but one of the political parties, eventually lead to a weak parliament, India may reassess its support.
While India has the most to lose in Nepal, China has welcomed the recent instability as an easy way to establish its influence there. It has signed arms deals with King Gyanendra, and should the king prove able to hold onto power, it would gain support on the border of the Tibetan region. Yet, if the king proves unable to last, then, in China's perception, the situation simply returns to the previous paradigm in which India dominates Nepal's agenda. This position also places China in the way of forming an international solution to the tri-polar power struggle in the United Nations.
Conclusion
The parliamentary parties and the Maoist rebels formed an alliance after the February 2005 coup. The alliance, although frayed, still holds even though the rebels took up arms again at the start of the year. The king's plan to hold elections next month has been hotly contested by the parliamentary parties and the rebels. This has led to an increase in violence in the past weeks as the political parties have attempted to disrupt the process through mass protests, and the rebels have attempted to force the cancellation of the polls by increasing their attacks. Both tactics have been met with violence from the king's security forces. On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the coup, over 500 people were detained in order to prevent planned protests, and a rebel attack in Palpa killed 16 policemen and three soldiers.
Several prominent political leaders have been placed under house arrest, and while there have been some relaxations on the city's outer regions, the curfew and ban on gatherings put in place by the king remain in Kathmandu's center. It is not clear how the elections will play out on February 8. It is likely, however, that they will go forward with a low turnout.
The political parties and the rebels seem to have gained the upper hand as the elections approach. Only 3,255 individuals filed to stand for 4,146 vacant seats. Those who have registered have been urged to stay in police custody for their own protection. While this undermines the king's plan to build his legitimacy through the elections, violence and intimidation from the rebels might also undermine the international standing of the political parties if their alliance is not broken. It does not appear that the elections will force any breakthrough in the tri-polar power struggle.
Predictably, India, the U.S., and the U.K. have said the coming elections are not legitimate, while China has shown its support for them. If the current impasse continues to hold, India, in consolidation with the United States, may begin to shift its support back to the king. China's support for the king will be unwavering, even if the polls collapse in violence or are widely ignored. The elections will not be the first step to restoring order in Nepal, but they may help to determine which neighboring country will benefit from Nepal's failure.
Report Drafted By:
Adam Wolfe
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