​Bhutan Maoists

The following is from

MAOIST_REVOLUTION@yahoogroups.com;
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the civil war that is being waged in India, especially due to the  journalism of Arundhati Roy, and recent political developments in Nepal, however, less focus has been placed on the people's war in Bhutan and the nascent Maoist movements in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  Indeed, the Afghan Maoists have made their voice increasingly heard in the past year through a series of translations of party documents that have been circulated on numerous listservs and blogs regarding international matters, especially on question of communist practice. The Sri Lankan Maoists have produced one public issue of an interesting journal and have recently published 1-2 recent interviews with their leadership. Ideally in the coming years there were be a reproduction of the works of Com. Sanmugathasan, the founder of the Communist Party of Ceylon (Maoist), and one of the original theorists of Tamil Eelam from a Marxist perspective. And the Pakistani Maoists, who are part of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (and not the petit-bourgeois and opportunist CMKP) have in the last 2-3 years slowly attempted to sum up the experiences of the last fast years, especially the failed merger with the Communist Party of Pakistan, and subsequent splits. However, besides a few articles that have intermittently appeared, there has been little to no information about the Bhutanese Maoists and the people's war that they have been waging for the last few years. This of course is not aided by the fact that the RIM has become a defunct organization. As has the CCOMPOSA (although there have been come recent attempts to by the Bangladeshi comrades to reconvene such an organizational body).

A new article by T.P Mishra has shed some light on this ever-growing Maoist movement in one of the most repressive countries in the region. Indeed, I did not know that there had been a split in the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxists-Leninists-Maoist) and unfortunately it is not clear from the article about the causes and ideological differences that resulted in the split besides the boiler-plate denunciation of the ousted leader as an `opportunist'. It is clear that there is much to learn about this new people's war and the communist movement in Bhutan. Although, it must be noted that the people's war in Turkey has similarly been under-reported within Maoist circles in the recent years. The last report about the situation in Turkey was reported in the defunct RIM journal – A World to Win – shortly after the MKP held its congress and several leaders were killed by Turkish forces. Furthermore, unfortunately no translation of Com. Ibrahim Kaypakkaya's Selected Works have been published in English and besides a few articles here and there, his work remains largely obscured to us.

The revolution in Bhutan is an interesting development as Bhutan is often recognized as being a colony of the Indian government and the Nepalese Maoists have always stated that they would not allow Nepal to follow such a political-economic course. Thus, it will be interesting to see how the Indian government will react to these political developments in Bhutan as I am sure that they would like to avoid a repetition of events in Nepal in the last 2 decades. Indeed, the principal contradictions are common to both situations: Indian expansionism vs. national self-determination and monarchy/feudalism vs. communism. Thus, a de-linking of Nepal and Bhutan from India both economically and politically would definitely undermine Indian economic success and would help cause a political crisis. Furthermore, it would allow for the development of an all-South Asia revolution especially if the comrades in  Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are able to take this time to regroup and develop their forces.

Finally, if anyone knows how to get a copy of Com. Vigyan's `Bhutanese Communist Movement: Brief Study of Essence', I would love to buy one and read it.

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