Nepalese Maoist Baburam Bhattarai: "We'll Never Surrender Our Arms"

One of the principal Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leaders, Baburam Bhattarai, made clear that the Maoists will not be disarmed prior to the holding of elections for a constituent assembly for a body to write a new state constitution.

KATHMANDU, July 10 (Reuters) - Nepal's Maoist rebels will not surrender
their arms before next year's elections for a special assembly to map out the
embattled Himalayan nation's political future, a top rebel leader said on
Monday.

"Let everybody be clear -- we'll never surrender our arms," Baburam Bhattarai, seen as number two to Maoist chief Prachanda, told Reuters in an interview.

"We want the restructuring of the state and the army. In that restructured army our army will also be integrated."

Comrade Bhattarai makes clear that the Maoists will not accept anything less that the dismantling of the old state and the construction a new popular, democratic state. In order to do this, the revolutionary armed forces must not be liquidated; rather, the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the national army and the army of the new state. The soldiers of the old "royal" army should be incorporated into a new national army along with the PLA.

The United States, which provides $45 million aid annually to impoverished Nepal -- more than 10 percent of total aid -- has threatened to withdraw funds if the Maoists, who it lists as terrorists, join the interim government without giving up arms.

It is clear that the imperialists are frustrated with the success of the Nepalese revolutionary forces, and are conspiring to effect a counterrevolutionary coup d'etat. Along with this, the old Hindu chauvinists and royalists are plotting comeback attempts. Because of these dangers, it is important that the Maoists have made the firm decision to maintain the revolutionary armed forces. As Comrade Mao said, "with a people's army, the people have nothing." Comrade Lenin instructed, "all but power is illusion."

"There is tremendous pressure from the people who want to make
the peace process a success," Bhattarai said, adding that the rebels would not
return to war.

Bhattarai said the guerrillas had no regrets about the war,
which has ravaged infrastructure and displaced more than 200,000 of the
country's 26 million population.

"We are proud of it. We have changed the whole scenario --
political, economic, social and cultural scenario in the country," he said.

The Maoists are committed to pursuing elections to a constituent assembly as a pathway for revolutionary change. They are upholding the strategy of people's war as not just an "option" for revolutionary
change, but rather as an absolutely necessary means of struggle. Indeed, without the ten years of people's war and without what Comrade Mao called the the three magic weapons of Party, people's army, and revolutionary united front, the recent successes of the anti-feudal, pro-democratic movement would have been out of the question.

Though Comrade Bhattarai states that the Maoists would not "return to war," this is in fact completely in the hands of the imperialists, feudal monarchists, and anti-national bureaucrat capitalists: if they sabotage the environment, making it impossible to hold elections for a constituent assembly, this will constitute an act of war, forcing the people to return to other forms to struggle.

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