Nepal- New Peoples Movement Imminent?

If your one who's have paid allot of attention to Nepal in recent times, you may have noticed that the media isn't always, well, reliable in any way shape or form...

Between highly sensationalised non-events, out of context misquotes and an amazingly narrow Kathmandu centric view of the Himalayan Republic, its generally accepted that the Nepalese media (or at least the English language variety) is worth little more then the paper its written on.

However, today's top story from The Himalayan however hold more water then usual. *Maoist finalize 15-day protest programme, to go all out against govt from Nov 2.*

Admittedly, this is not the first time that the media has announced an impending Maoist uprising. To be fair, its not even the first time that the Maoists have announced an imminent peoples revolt but this time i think however there are allot more reasons to be taking this seriously.

Firstly, the long and tedious attempts to find a common ground with the illegitimate government have been thoroughly exhausted. It is obvious to all, even the most wavering liberal minded Nepali, that the illegitimate and unconstitutional government coup government that was set up on the back of the (royal) military and the Indian and American embassy's has no intention of making any compromise. The illegitimate government refuses to even debate the unconstitutional coup in the constituent Assembly. In the eyes of the everyone, legitimate channels have obviously failed, which opens up the way for more drastic measures.

The Maoists have now announced an extensive protest program- which is not just an idle threat, but have announced their intention to blockade the seats of government. How success full this new Jana Andolan (Peoples Movement) will be is yet to be seen, but it seems that the revolutionaries are going to roll the dice.

Secondly, the monsoon is now over. This means that not only is it a better time to strike politically, as people are now no longer hard at work cultivating fields, the transport system is in better running order, which makes a mass co-ordinated movement more logistically possible.

Thirdly, the actions and movements of the Maoists point towards this time. They have sent allot of organisers out into rural areas in the recent months to rebuild and strengthen their rural networks, which were a little bit neglected in some areas. They have had a massive propaganda push across the country (and internationally) to sure up support. They are now moving their cadre into building this movement. Conferences and other events have been cancelled or postponed to free up resources.

The word I'm getting back from contacts on the ground is that the party will throw its weight into this movement. Where will it go? How successful will it be? these are things that are impossible to answer in advance, and is purely in the hands of the Nepali people but at any rate this is going to be a significant movement, and the Maoists will be pulling out all stops to bring about some real changes in the political situation.