Mountain Maoists.(Communist Party revolution, Lung, Nepal)(Brief Article)

Deep in Nepal's mountainous countryside, kilometers from the nearest dirt road, locals in the village of Lung are gearing up for the next proletarian revolution. Two weeks ago thousands of locals gathered to hear underground Maoist cadres and guerrillas give old-style communist speeches and recruit new supporters. Anti-fascist slogans adorned mud- and-thatch huts. Farmers in western Pyuthan district hiked for hours to attend the rally.

Lung, about 300 kilometers west of Katmandu, lacks running water, electricity and phone service. But there is no shortage of 50-year-old political ideology. Maoist rants are considered old-think in neighboring China. With some consternation, Beijing officials have stressed that they have nothing to do with Nepal's Maoists. But don't tell that to the villagers in Lung. The rally seemed straight out of Mao Zedong's Long March--complete with the traditional musical instruments (such as bulbous drums and curved trumpets) and song-and- dance troupes. "Do the Chinese people know about Nepal's Maoist movement?" asked one eager villager when he learned I live in Beijing. "We're so glad to see a visitor from the land of Mao!"

News travels slowly in the hinterlands of western Nepal. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the popular appeal of the country's fledgling Maoist movement. It started five years ago, when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) abandoned electoral politics and went underground. Rebels denounced the monarchy and clamored for a "proletarian people's republic." The group has been steadily growing in the impoverished countryside, and it's now scrambling to exploit political uncertainties triggered by the massacre of King Birendra and eight other royals. Seven of Nepal's 75 districts are now totally controlled by the insurgents.

In Lung, the half-demolished husk of an abandoned police station shows that the rebels aim to be taken seriously. In fact, 1,700 people have been killed since the insurgency began in 1996. Government authorities no longer venture near parts of Pyuthan, or near the adjacent Rolpa district, which is the heart of the movement. A local Maoist leader, Comrade Sunil, says that the goal is to take over the Pyuthan district government "very soon, certainly within a year." From there, he adds, the movement will expand outward "like the layers of an onion." Sunil comes from Rolpa district, which has a wooden gateway declaring welcome to the Maoist republic.

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