Valley
Dahal defends ‘People’s War’
CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has claimed that the decade-long “people’s war” that his party waged against the state was not a “romance of some individuals” but an “outcome of the historical necessity”.CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has claimed that the decade-long “people’s war” that his party waged against the state was not a “romance of some individuals” but an “outcome of the historical necessity”.
While launching the ‘Ansh’, a memoir by Federation of Nepali Journalists General Secretary Ujir Magar, former rebel leader Dahal claimed that books by some journalists including Sudheer Sharma’s Prayogshala had triggered debates. Worried about negative portrayals of the bloody war, Dahal tried to clarify that the conflict should be studied on the social, cultural, economic and psychological grounds of the contemporary Nepali society.
More than 17,000 people were killed in the insurgency that ultimately led to the abolition of monarchy and helped establish the republican order. Thousands of people experienced trauma related to kidnappings, murders, disappearances, torture and false charges both at the hands of the state and the insurgents.
The mastermind of the war, Dahal claimed that the changes that resulted from the conflict would have lasting impact on the country’s history.
Responding to remarks that a solution to conflict should have been sought within the country, Dahal claimed that his party had tried hard to resolve the issue at home but that did not happen due to the stance of then-king Gyanendra. The roadmap of the peace process was sketched in the 12-point understanding reached in New Delhi between the CPN (Maoist) and the seven political parties of Nepal in 2005.
On the Maoists’ decision to lay down the arms, Dahal clarified that the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the country’s geopolitical situation had led his party to search for a safe landing. He also lauded the role of journalists in bringing them to the peace process. Dahal said Magar’s memoir was a lively documentation of Nepal’s political developments and journalism without raising a political controversy.
Journalists Yubaraj Ghi-mire, Narayan Wagle, Gunaraj Luitel, Govinda Acharya, CPN-UML leader Surya Thapa and FNJ Chairman Mahendra Bista discussed the issues dealt in the book.