Maoist Proxy

In recent months, members of the hitherto unknown Young Communist League (YCL) have emerged as a crucial front organisation for the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist). While the CPN-Maoist, which has joined the Interim Government, prepares for the elections to the Constituent Assembly, its YCL affiliate engages in abduction, extortion, looting and a range of intimidatory crimes. Indeed, the YCL is now perceived as a dreaded gang with the capacity to assault any one on the street, abduct people from their homes and issue threats to people while demanding money from them.

YCL was formed by the CPN-Maoist at some point (there is no definite information on the year of its creation) during the ‘people’s war’ as an affiliate to provide support and energy to the ‘revolution’. As the party’s youth wing, its role was to "organise youth, be involved in events, conduct political awareness, and take part in development work as volunteers." Once the CPN-Maoist was proscribed, the YCL was also forced to go underground. After the April 2006 Jana Andolan (People’s Movement) and the subsequent over-ground role of the insurgents, the CPN-Maoist decided to revive theYCL.

Ganeshman Pun, chairman of the YCL, reveals that the League was reactivated in November 2006. According to him, the YCL "is a fusion of the Party’s military and political character, and it is composed of PLA members who have an interest in politics." 

In February 2007, the YCL held its first national convention in the capital Kathmandu, which was inaugurated by none other than the CPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda. Theconvention formed a 45-member new Central Committee with Ganeshman Pun as its chairman, Uma Bhujel as its vice-chairman, Dileep Kumar Prajapati asgeneral secretary, R. P. Sharma as secretary and Bhagwat Baduwal as treasurer. Each of these leaders is a hard core member of the CPN-Maoist and has been appointed to the YCL in order to evade inclusion in the mechanisms for the management of arms and armies by the United Nations. Nanda Kishore Pun, the Maoist Central Committee member and ‘deputy commander’ of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in an interview to Nepali Times conceded, "It is true that at present some commanders have been sent to the YCL. They are individuals who were previously active in the YCL and have experience."

A brief review of the identities of the office bearers of the resurrected YCL provides an interesting picture of the organisation and some idea of its intent and objectives. Ganeshman Pun is a senior Maoist cadre and was the ‘Commissar’ of the Parivarthan Memorial Ninth Brigade of the PLA. Uma Bhujel is a PLA ‘section commander’ famous for leading a successful jailbreak in Gorkha on March 31, 2001, along with five of her associates. Dileep Kumar Prajapati and Bhagwat Baduwal are top ranking commanders in the PLA. Another Central Committee member, Chandra Bahadur Thapa aka Comrade Sagar, who is in charge of YCL’s Kathmandu region, is a former ‘battalion commander’ of the Dinesh-Ramji Samiti Brigade. Senior YCL leader, Sabitri Gurung, is a ‘deputy battalion commander’ of the PLA. Most of the YCL members are combatants who the CPN-Maoist did not want confined in the cantonments under the regulation of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). YCL also includes an unspecified number of child soldiers who are not eligible for registration as per the UNMIN standards, as well as a large number of cadres who were recruited by the Maoists during the cease-fire period, with the assurance that they would be inducted into the National Army.

YCL leaders claim that their cadres are unarmed young men without any formal military training and they do not carry guns nor have they any expertise in exploding grenades and bombs. However, it is now widely known that YCL cadres receive extensive training in unarmed combat. Moreover, members who have experience of fighting during the insurgency are trained by the CPN–M, and are familiar with the use of sophisticated weapons. YCL cadres openly carry knives, sticks, iron bars and other improvised weapons and swagger around the countryside and the Kathmandu region without fear or restriction. Reports indicate that the YCL "is a group of highly trained commandos of the Maoists who instead of being sent to the cantonments have been deliberately kept into the open by the party high command to meet exigencies."

The role of the YCL is fairly evident in the following recent incidents:

May 9: YCL cadres killed an elderly man, identified as Bir Bahadur Kalakheti, near Khandbari in the Sankhuwasabha District. 

May 6: YCL cadres seized ‘illegally imported’ mobile phones and electronic goods worth more than NR 30 million in Kathmandu. The goods include 1,415 mobile phone sets, 25 LCD monitors, 30 photocopier machines, 288 units of memory cards, 387 units of chargers and 265 units of earphones.

May 5: A group of YCL cadres set ablaze the Nepal Electricity Authority and Land Revenue Offices at Gulariya in the Bardiya District. 

May 4: In the Phidim District, a group of about 15 YCL cadres assaulted two activists of the Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and robbed them of NR 70,000 in cash and two tolas (about 23 grams) of gold.

May 2: Twenty-six persons, including 16 civilians, were injured when protesters led by the YCL clashed with personnel of the Armed Police Force (APF) at Sanoshree in the Bardiya District. YCL cadres earlier went on rampage demanding withdrawal of the security posts in the area. 

May 1: Three APF personnel were injured in a clash with YCL cadres at Sanoshree in the Bardiya District. (YCL cadres have reportedly threatened to kill those aiding the Government for the deployment of the APF inSanoshree).

April 22: YCL activists attacked K.C. Bikash, President of the Sunsari chapter of the Nepal Student Union – Democratic, inKathmandu.

April 20: Seven YCL cadres intruded into the residence of a woman to rob her valuables in the Kappan area ofKathmandu.

April 13: Fifty YCL cadres attacked locals at Betali Bazaar in the Ramechhap District with pistols, knives, sticks and iron bars, injuring at least 50 persons.

March 26: A dozen local journalists from Itahari, an eastern city of Nepal, received death threats from Ritesh Shrestha of theYCL. 

March 19: YCL cadres captured 25 ropanis (1 ropani = 5,476 square feet) of land and four houses of former Army Chief Sachchit Shumsher Rana at Laxmibazaar in the Gorkha District, and hoisted their party flag there. 

March 17: In the Kavrepalanchowk District, YCL cadres abducted a civilian, identified as SureshMalla. 

One Nepalese commentator remarks, "leaders of the seven parties now in alliance have to collect enough courage to enter into their constituencies. The fact is that the leaders who should have been by now into their constituencies are stranded in Kathmandu for fear of being violently attacked by the YCL cadres of the Maoists." 

In order to project an image of a ‘socially responsible’ group, the YCL also engages its cadres a number of symbolic activities such as cleaning localities, cleaning rivers and planting trees. On occasion, they have involved themselves in quasi-policing activities like traffic management, night patrolling, demolition of illegal houses, and the capture of alleged gangsters. Since these are integral responsibilities of the Government, the YCL intervention actually create additional law and order problems. However, backed as they are by the full might of the Maoists, YCL cadres openly challenge Government authorities, including the Police, and are progressively establishing a parallel authority and system.

YCL is active in a majority of Districts across Nepal. Their activity has been confirmed in Jhapa, Kavrepalanchowk, Ramecchap, Kathmandu, Bardiya, Morang, Phidim, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Rukum, Rolpa, Itahari, Sunsari and Sankhuwasabhadistricts. 

The explicit Maoist support to the YCL is evident. Suspecting the YCL of possessing weapons and detaining people, the Metropolitan Police on April 15, 2007, conducted a raid on YCL offices in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The Police failed to recover anything from the sites, but a Parliamentary Party meeting of the CPN-Maoist immediately condemned the raids and asked thegovernment to stop such ‘undemocratic’ activities. The CPN-Maoist also askedhome minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula to apologise before Parliament for the raids. The growing importance of the YCL for the Maoists is demonstrated through such reactions to an inconsequential Police raid.

Prachanda has announced that ‘reactionaries’ are trying to tag the YCL as a ‘terrorist’ group, though he has also admitted that "minor faults have been committed" by the organisation and that "we will try to rectify those shortcomings, time permitting." It has been reported, moreover, that senior Maoist leader and now Minister for Physical Training and Works, Hisila Yami, has emphasised ‘cooperation’ with YCL members in various activities of herministry.

There have been rising complaints from different quarters regarding the YCL cadres’ unruly behaviour. On May 3, 2007, the Nepali Congress Women’s Association submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister G.P. Koirala against excesses committed by the YCL. Nepali Congress General Secretary and the Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Ram Chandra Poudel has demanded the dismantling of the YCL. Senior Nepali Congress leader, Sujata Koirala, has alleged that that each YCL cadre possessed a weapon and they are being trained to capture booths during elections with the use of armed force. Responding to the growing pressure on him, Prime Minister Koirala declared that he would no longer tolerate the activities of the YCL, adding that the Government would consider taking ‘stern action’ against the outfit. This threat is yet to be translated into concrete initiatives.

The CPN-Maoist is now formally registered with the Election Commission as a political party, but has chosen to revive and sustain the YCL for obvious reasons. The reactivation of the YCL at this crucial juncture and the appointment of top Maoist commanders to the ‘youth wing’, is evidently part of the grand strategy to keep Maoist cadres outside the scope of UNMIN scrutiny and to use their energies to dominate the forthcoming elections. The YCL’s presence has created a fear psychosis in the minds of ordinary citizens who see no difference between the radical youth organisation and the Maoists. 

Prasanta Kumar Pradhan is Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal