StrategyPage reports on the latest goings-on in Nepal and India’s response –

March 25, 2005: India is threatening to blockade Nepal, to force the king to reinstate elected officials in the government. India has used blockades before to force Nepal to do what India wants. There was a blockade in 1989, to force Nepal to not buy weapons from China. In 1974, there was a blockade to force Nepal to stop protesting India’s annexation of nearby Sikkim. But in this case, India does not want to aid the Maoists. It is pretty clear that the Maoists want to establish a radical dictatorship in Nepal, which would be less democratic than the king, and a lot more prone to violence against the Nepalese people. India also has its own Maoist rebels, and knows how violent they can be. But the actions of the Nepalese king are very unpopular in India, and everyone knows that India has the final say, by cutting off the flow of vital supplies to Nepal.

Peace marches and “not in my name” rallies to protest India’s threats have been scheduled by Western activist groups…. details to follow. In the meantime, an earlier Stratpage entry provides some of the background on the 3-way civil conflict engulfing Nepal –

March 9, 2005: Nepal is becoming a mess. The country is split by a three way civil war. There are the monarchists, which include wealthy land owners, and many poor rural people. The country is a constitutional monarchy, but the king still has emergency powers, which not everyone agrees on, but which are being used now. There are the democrats, who are largely urban and educated, who currently cannot figure out how to cooperate with each other on how to deal with the Maoists. Then there are the Maoists, who are led by educated urbanites, and used armed, brainwashed teenagers to terrorize the rural, and then urban, population into support a communist dictatorship. The Maoists want to destroy the ancient pattern of feudal land ownership.