I had little time to digest what I saw in Nepal last December. Maybe because when I arrived in Manila, at once I was fuming with impatience after finding out that my luggage was lost by the airlines.
From the airport, I was even packed with worry because I have yet to find out where is the venue of the year-end meeting I need to go to, with other comrades being already there and their phones I couldn’t reach. Plus after the meeting, I hurried back to my home province only to be trapped there by ravaging rains, landslides, bringing devastation and displacement to the lives and livelihoods of many of our kababayans.
Without opportunity for evasion, I must report-back and this is also what I promised the Nepali young revolutionaries that I’ve met. I told Suman, one of closest friends I’ve made with while there, that we have to tell the stories of hope and struggle that the promise of revolution and socialism await the Nepali people, in the short time that I witnessed it or at least in contrast with the mainstream media blurring or sometimes distortion of it.
Not a holiday
I was not like some ostentatious tourists eager to tell their adventures in the Himalayas or some of the A-grade tourist spots like Pokhari or the city of temples in Kathmandu. The last time Nepal hit the Philippine news, it was when Garduce and Philippine mountaineers’ team reached the summit of Mt. Everest in March 2006.
There was live coverage by major outfits glorifying the climb but utterly oblivious of the raging struggle against the autocratic absolute monarchy in Nepal that time. The Nepali peoples uprising failed to even land in the sideline news.
Before leaving Manila I have acquainted myself of the would-be scenarios; the life-and death situation (of course topic of peoples’ war entails blood) that I could possibly encounter, though I’ve learned that the revolutionary communist movement in Nepal entered into a Peace Pact with mainstream bourgeois parties after the monarchy was toppled in 2006.
“Lal Salaam”
At the Kathmandu airport, I was recovering from the sensation of being up in the air for too long. The captain suspended the plane for a ten-minute treat for some tourists to have a glimpse of Himalayas from a higher altitude. From the top, the imminent Nepali storm is obscured.
I was met by Bijay at the immigration queue and whisked away directly to the opening of the 18th Convention of the All Nepal National Independent Student Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) at the Tribhuvan University. ANNISU-R is identified with the politics of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which is in peace process and members of current Constituent Assembly (CA) to establish a republic and pro-people Constitution since the fall of the monarchy.
On the way there, I was told by Bijay to prepare a short greeting to be addressed at the convention opening. I asked him what the translation of “revolutionary greetings” is in the Nepali language. And he said I could simply say “Lal Salaam!” which means “Red salute”.
I wasn’t able to deliver my short piece when I arrived at Tribhuvan University so I simply waved and raised my fist when my arrival was announced in front of around 10, 000 members of the ANNISU-R. Other international delegates had already spoken and at that time some district student leaders of ANNISU-R were already speaking in Nepali language.
The winter air brought a distinct feeling of warmth. Speeches were not simultaneously translated to us, but every speech is punctuated with applause and raised fists from the crowd.
The next day, mainstream broadsheets front-page's like The Himalayan Times carry the photo of the Maoist leaders present in the ANNISU-R convention opening, including Pushpa Kamal “Prachanda”, Mohan “Kiran” Baidya and Baburam Batarrai with a caption “The Big Guns”.
I asked one of our student guides, Suman, about the caption. “It might be because of Prachanda’s speech,” he said. “He told the ANNISU-R and the revolutionary youth to get ready now more than ever because the political situation is becoming serious.”
Lately, there has been increased uncertainty in Nepal. There has been no formal government for around six months now in this poor land-locked country of around 23 million people.UCPN-Maoist contender parties in the CA namely the Nepali Congress (NC) and Communist Party of Nepal United Marxist-Leninist (UML) accuse the Maoists of adhering still to violence after the 2006 Peace Accord was hammered out.
“Prachanda said we must ensure to finish the peace process but also be ready to take power if the reactionaries maneuver, for this not to happen.”
Suman added that’s why Prachanda’s speech was received with the most thunderous applause, aside from his being the chairperson of the UCPN-Maoist.
When I asked Suman what he thought of Prachanda’s exhortation, he said that violent confrontation is inevitable in Nepal if real change is to be achieved. “If we want a People’s Republic and socialism, I quote Mao,‘Political power comes out from the barrel of a gun.’”
I apologized for the many questions I asked Suman and he said with smiles not escaping his face, “Revolutionaries are patient for our struggle is protracted.”
Suman, a freshman law student, and unarguably juggles his role as our translator and program manager, explains that we have to open our ears wide open because we will soon encounter “contrasting ideas” during our program for the day.
Our conversation was interrupted, when the bus came to pick us up from the hostel where we were staying, to the Tribhuvan University. We met at the lobby the other delegates from Greece, India,Turkey, Norway, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Australia greeting each other with our new-learned greetings: “Lal Salaam!”
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