NP Upadhyaya, Kathmandu: The fierce of the bygone Maoists era, Comrade Prachanda is visibly shaken from within. This time his fear is real.
That he is a frightened political personality at the moment is evident from the manner he is expressing his inner pains upon his ‘hasty arrival’ from the United States back to his home country.
He is trembling.
He is terrified perhaps thinking as to what would have happened to him and his dearest wife (the one who is the witness to the chaotic and the merciless killings of the seventeen thousand plus innocent Nepali civilians during the India designed people’s war) had the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the USA acted as per the appeal made by Dr. Tilak Shrestha-a research scholar at the Kentucky University.
Quite unfortunately, though the Kentucky scholar Mr. Shrestha did his job honestly and presented the voices of the voiceless and made it known to the US government and its people that Prachanda have had engineered the Maoists war in Nepal by residing in New Delhi and the same sponsored war took the lives of some seventeen thousand people and that Prachanda was a war time criminal who needs to be penalized but the US did not respond.
Prachanda has not spelt about the possible consequences which would have awaited him in the US had he been arrested but sharp brains conclude that given Prachanda’s gloomy face upon his hasty Nepal arrival spoke of it all.
The one who terrified others now remains himself in a terrified state. What a tryst with destiny?
Has he escaped the US trial? He could have but yet the Hague tribunal may summon him. The chances remain high. A Nepali lad, Lenin Bista who was recruited as a child militia during the fake people’s war, is currently in the Netherlands who is meeting these days the high officials in the European Capitals and conveying them as to what the Maoists war meant to Nepal and what remains yet to be done for Prachanda and Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai by a competent world legal body that is the Hague tribunal?
This means that this child militia, Lenin Bista who has dared to challenge the “ferocious” is currently in The Hague meeting the men who have a say and know as to how the register such a case in the Hague Tribunal for justice that these kids have been denied by the former Maoists.
Shri Purushottam Dhakal, a Nepali journalist based in the LOS ANGELES says that “it seems that the bad karma of Nepal Ex-rebels’ Chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ in the past will continue to hunt and chase him until he meets the final judgment day at an international criminal court for his war crimes”.
Mr. Dhakal has made these observations for News 24 hours dated April 7, 2019.
He writes more about Lenin Bista and dwells at length about the motive of Mr. Bista’s visit to various European Capitals.
Will The Hague listen to Lenin Bista’s plea finally? Keep your fingers crossed.
Now the question is as to why the US spared the veteran Maoists leader without penalizing him while being inside its territory for some good ten days?
Associated with this is the question as to why the US summarily ignored Dr. Tilak Shrestha’s appeal made to the FBI?
To recall and a reminder to the lone super power also, the US was one of the first few countries in the globe to have declared the Maoists insurgency of Nepal as a terrorist outfit.
The then US Ambassador James F Moriarty knows of it all. Is he listening?
In diplomacy, there is no free lunch, it is widely believed.
If so then what remains to be told as to, firstly, who brought Prachanda closer to the US administration?
Secondly, is the mediator a nonpolitical or for that matter a neutral person speaking on political terms?
Thirdly, if the mediator is a person or institution who lobbied then in favor of Prachanda for this visit and this he did for what gains to the mediator?
Fourthly, if there was an intermediary in between the US and Prachanda then what the He man of the people’s war period promised to the US for receiving gratis visa through the mediator who is believed to be a Tibetan monk (refugee) residing in the Kathmandu’s Boudhanath area.
Fifthly, if the US visa granted to Prachanda was a privileged one then why Prachanda was so scared during his entire stay in the US?
Prachanda was supposed to meet VP Mike Pence but could meet only assistant secretary Alice J Wells. Why he at the first place cut short his US visit and why the US brought him to his size by not allowing him to meet VP Mike Pence as publicized prior to his US visit? Though for Prachanda, the meet with Assistant secretary Alice is more than he deserved. After all Prachanda was not in Delhi meeting SD Muni or Ashok Mehta or Swami Agnivesh.
But Prachanda talks that he was in knowledge of the US issuing of the ‘No Investigation Circular’ for him and yet he was scared for which reasons? Has he become so weak these days upon losing his illustrious son? Son’s loss is always painful. We sympathize.
Moreover, is it that he was scared by the Nepali Congress Washington D.C committee resolution wherein the NC men hinted the US government that Prachanda be nabbed for his cruel crimes made at time of the India pumped people’s war?
The NC resolution was made public coinciding with the time when the people’s war Hero was very much close to the heartland of the US.
Was this NC resolution which scared him to the hilt that he preferred to wind up his US trip for fear of being unceremoniously arrested?
Was the NC Committee informed by the high command in Kathmandu to create troubles for Prachanda during his US Trip?
And why the Nepali Ambassador Mr. Karki upon receiving Prachanda in the port of entry in the US gave the impression to the Nepal’s “ferocious” hero that all was not well for him? Was it a deliberate an attempt to frighten Prachanda? If so then who instigated Ambassador Karki?
If so then question arises as to from which political quota Mr. Karki has been stationed in the US as Nepal’s Ambassador? Was Ambassador playing foul with Prachanda-our national hero?
But yet why Ambassador Karki hosted Prachanda at his guest house in Washington under the Nepali flag?
Had he got some dangerous signals from the local US authorities as regards Prachanda and so he tried to carry Prachanda to the destination point in Washington safely through a secret route?
Any individual having US Visa in his or her passport is supposed legally to enter the US without any fear and in turn the US immigration authorities honor persons with such Visa.
Granting of the Visa means that the person is not a persona non-grata for the visa issuing country. Prachanda must have been in knowledge of this fact but yet he was afraid upon his arrival at the US entry point. But why? He only claims that attempts were made to malign his political credentials in the eyes of the US authorities.
But why Nepal’s ambassador Mr. Karki tried to scare Prachanda is beyond our imagination.
If one were to believe Prachanda then one should also take his expressions that he made upon his arrival in Nepal wherein he took a sigh of relief implying that “Thanks God I am now saved”.
He in effect said once that “thanks the US that I was saved or else the Nepalese living in the US have had tried to implicate him” for war crimes by appealing the US federal agency to arrest the war crime hero from Nepal who was roaming round the US soil for the treatment of his beloved wife.
His words of praise for the US is mysterious indeed. Prachanda’s self-admission that the US saved his life forces observers to think that he was spared by the world power for some political gains. But was the US treatment to Prachanda for free?
Now let’s discuss as to what may have Prachanda offered to the US and in turn what the US may have assured Prachanda-the Delhi’s inner core man unconditionally. The US must not have any illusion in this respect.
The rumors that Mr. Lopsang, the much talked representative of the Dalai Lama in Nepal, residing in the Boudhnath area negotiated in between the two gives some space to think that Prachanda has shifted his allegiance from New Delhi to Washington.
Mr. Charles Mendiz is learnt to have also assisted Prachanda’s easy entrance into the US. However, this remains yet to be authenticated.
But the question comes here again as to why Washington relies on the New Delhi’s trusted and tested man?
The logic could be that since Delhi has already inched closer to Washington so the former Delhi man may offer his allegiance to the super power also. And this is what may have happened because Ambassador Randy Berry upon his Nepal arrival is on record to have told that “I love Boudhnath” area”.
It should be noted here that the US envoy is not a new comer in Kathmandu but this is his second posting but this time with the Ambassadorial rank.
Let’s presume that Ambassador Berry’s frequent walk to the Boudhnath area for a coffee may have brought him closer to the Dalai representative as reported by the People’s Review weekly quoting the Tarun vernacular weekly.
And this Mr. Lopsang-the representative of the Dalai lama-may have assisted in patching up the Venezuelan differences in between the US envoy and the Delhi’s man-Comrade Prachanda.
The Venezuelan drama thus came to an end with the Johns Hopkins hospital treatment of Mrs. Dahal.
This was perhaps the mode of the settlement wherein our macho man promised to help the US as and when demanded then the US side hopefully assured Prachanda that his visit to US now stood confirmed and upon his Nepal return, he shall offer his assistances to the US on matters that benefit the US and him only.
A wild guess only.
The US Ambassador as a diplomat served his country perfectly well. He may have taken it as a part of his own strategy to woo the politically unstable Prachanda. The US diplomats are nationalists. For Nepali diplomats, we are not sure, claim those who understand them better.
However, but at what cost the US may have extended its support to Prachanda? Was it a free lunch?
Perhaps not. In diplomatic practices, it is talked that there is no free lunch. So what Prachanda may have assured the US Administration that apart from serving New Delhi, he could now also be working for the US in its Indo-Pacific strategy and this is what the US had been searching for.
It is said when you begin serving, you get encouraged to serve as many as you could.
The US wished Nepal to play a crucial role in the Indo-Pacific strategy. However, the US perhaps concluded that since PM Oli is comfortably closer to China and thus Prachanda who has some scores to be settled with China would be the best persona to hit China hard from Nepal and that too using Prachanda.
Prachanda is in the current Nepal Communist party (NCP) coalition ruling the nation. This has some political advantage to those who can milk Prachanda.
Ambassador Berry definitely accomplished his tasks in a brilliant manner, however, Prachanda, if the logic mentioned above comes out to be true then, he is the loser and time permitting neither Delhi nor Washington would take him seriously thinking that a man who could not serve his own mother land could not serve their interests and thus shall be dumped eventually by both the great powers stated above.
Whether Prachanda has begun working for the US shall come to our knowledge with the advance of time so any hasty conclusion must not be arrived at this juncture. It would be premature to arrive at a conclusion.
But the US must be congratulated in that the Indo-Pacific strategy has now an active player who shall do his best to irritate China for multiple reasons.
Very interestingly, the talk of the change of PM Oli from the government has begun circulating in Kathmandu’s political circuit and that too just close on the heels of Prachanda’s hasty arrival from the USA. The Nepal born Indian viceroy who was freshly here to dictate his terms and conditions as usual must have sounded Prachanda to do away with PM Oli. Observers hope that Prachanda in all his capacity shall act as per the hint made available to him from the remote control device.
Could be a rumor spread to malign Prachanda’s nationalist credentials only but mind it that it is the rumors first which take a real shape in Kathmandu politics some time later. That’s all.