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Outside Magazine September 2001

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Mountain Kingdom (cont.)


	Comrade Strong Man and one of his flunkies.

In meeting the Maoists, we've achieved exactly what most visitors to Nepal have been hoping to avoid. Although few foreigners have heard much about the guerrillas—thanks to a suppressed local news media and a see-no-evil tourism industry—the two groups are already beginning to meet on the remote mountain paths that they share. Some trekking groups have bumped into Red Army patrols, who have pressed them to "donate" binoculars and sleeping bags to the revolution, but in most incidents the guerrillas and hikers have passed without speaking.

The real squeeze is happening back in Kathmandu. In March of last year, many foreign-owned businesses were approached by guerrilla representatives demanding money. Speaking on background, to protect his business, the head of one major American trekking company explained it as "a choice between operating here or holding to your ethical standards." Like several other foreign outfitters, he paid $1,400 to ensure that the Maoists left his clients alone.

Funding the very revolution that threatens you may seem self-defeating, but taking a stand against corruption in Nepal is like pissing up a rope. Extortion was once the privilege of the royal family, but since democracy arrived, in 1990, there are many more hands in the pot. Foreign aid funds evaporate; trekking fees earmarked for irrigation projects and reforestation are siphoned off. Until the practice was exposed in 1995, Queen Aiswarya received three million rupees annually from the oil monopoly and a rake-off from all foreign aid that passed through her powerful Queen's Coordinating Council. The weak do what the powerful teach them: Traffic policemen shake down motorists, and beat cops hit up restaurants for protection money. By this standard, the Maoists are quite reasonable. They send neatly written, personalized letters to hotels, businessmen, teachers, NGOs, and even government offices requesting the payments. In typical Nepali fashion, they will negotiate the price. The business of extortion has now become so lucrative that the country suffers from a plague of fake Maoists. A group of tourists rafting in the Chitwan nature reserve was robbed last year by "guerrillas," but an American diplomat told me that, of the four to five such encounters reported by tourists so far, only two involved genuine Maoists. In an effort to fight this corruption of their corruption, the Maoists began issuing receipts on official revolutionary letterhead, but they had to abandon this effort when—also in typical Nepali fashion—fake receipts were rushed into circulation.



	Maoist commander Sanktimon, aka Comrade Strong Man, declares a shadow government before 10,000 cheering supporters at the rally in Babhang. Moments later, he dragged the author onstage to address the crowd.

Pervasive government corruption has become the single greatest source of support for the guerrillas. "Look at Kathmandu," says Barbara Adams, a textile expert living here since the early 1960s. "Most of the palaces were built with corruption money, taken from development funds and foreign aid. It's an aid mafia, literally." Originally from New York, Adams knows the inner workings of the Kathmandu elite better than almost any foreigner, having been the kanchi swasni—"unofficial wife"—of a prince in the 1960s. She still has the Sunbeam Alpine sports car given to her by King Mahendra's brother.

Like a surprising number of people in Kathmandu, including intellectuals, members of parliament, and even army officers, Adams is eerily sympathetic to the Maoists in the hills. She believes they are patriots, fighting against a corrupt order. They actually care what happens to the majority of Nepalis, who can't read and have no electricity. She quotes a Nepali friend: "We're all Maoists now; there is no alternative."

But the lack of alternatives is the very problem. King Birendra was quietly sending signals to the Maoists, who praised him and sent condolences on his death. The new government is a cipher, but will likely take a harder line to protect its wealth and position. Even a Sunbeam-driving sympathizer can see that every day that passes without a solution makes things worse. Like the Shining Path, the Khmer Rouge, and Chairman Mao himself, the more the guerrillas fester in mountainous isolation, the more paranoid and intolerant they become. "The longer this goes on," Adams notes, "the harder the Maoists will get. And the next thing you know, we'll have a Taliban."

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