Counter Insurgency Strategy

From: G.P. Thapa

To: Narayan Chand Thakur

Sun, 16 Apr 2000

Dear Narayan,

As you know, it is needless to explain the situation about the terrorist activities in Nepal and the strategy taken by HMG/N to address it. There are two options open in such circumstances. One is offensive and the other preventive. The best method of managing insurgency is preventive and worst one is offensive. Unfortunately, we have chosen the worst one. Even in the context of offensive strategy, the operations are not carried oout with sound operational planning and preparations. And the end result of it is sure to be worst one.

I think we must understand the causes behind the insurgency. It is not the people who are our enemies. It is the rampant exploitation, abusse, discrimination, extreme poverty, the big gap between have and have nots—that is breeding the insurgency. Unless we understand it we can not design and deliver anything to the citizen. We are not treating at the root cause of this issue rather we are cutting through the branches and twigs, which ultimately is sure to grow with more branches.

At this juncture I would like to quote statement made by present COAS Genral Prabal Shumsher JBR, at the closing ceremony of International Terrorism on 17 Magh 2053 (30 Jan 1997) at Shivapuri. “It is now our responsibility to further enhance our studies, formulate practical and workable plans to counter terrorism. The Royal Nepalese Army would not be able to conduct operations alone, therefore, to make actions effective and purposeful, cooperation and coordination with other organs of His Majesty’s Governemtn is extremely vital”.

I would also like to bring forward the message of General Dharam Pal bar Singh Thapa, Army Chief in the opening of the same seminar. Some of them were;

1. Understand the nature of the problem

2. Clearly define terrorism in our context

3. Should individual’s right be curbed?

4. What is the future of terrorism in Nepal?

5. What should be our responses to terrorism?

And finally, there were some recommendations made by the seminar. One of the recommendations was to form a national counter terrorism committee in future.

Govind P. Thapa

From: Narayan Chand Thakur

To: Govind Prasad Thapa

Monday, Apr 17, 2000

Dear Govind,

Although, prevention strategy hs always been neglected, its importance can not be undermined and excluded from any strategy developed for countering terrorism. Rather, prevention strategy is the best and everlasting strategy we can ever think of.

However, I would like to deal with the following few points.

1. Commitment: Unless the government is fully determined to solve the problem of (Maoist) terrorism, there is no way that any form of committee or strategy can solve the problem, because you will need man, money and material, and of course the information which are so vital for any strategy you are going to manage. Till now I don’t see such an effort on the part of the government. And again, every party is competing by hook or crook, to gain the so called revolving chair, and nobody wants to displease the terrorist group or the supporters.
2. Formulation of Anti-terrorist Act: You can not counter the terrorism unless you have a strict law governing the terrorist activities. But it, too, has two aspects: a strict law will certainly act as a deterrent but there is the danger of abuse of power as well. Unless otherwise, there is a distinct and rigid way of monitoring and implementing punishment for the abuse of the authority, it is less likely that majority of the people will support the formulation of such an Act. So there is a need for some sort of committee to monitor such an action, because the issue of human right, eventually, will come up, and which is, of course, vital in a democratic country.
3. Management: The recent recommendation for a special task force numbering 15000 sounds cool but what about the use of modern technology such as infra-red for night vision, motion sensing equipment and electronic equipment for gathering information. The key to prevention of a terrorist event is ‘intelligence’ and one of the FBI agent Robert Heibel has right said, “law enforcement agency don’t understand intelligence”.

I don’t want to dwell on the prevention side because everybody knows that the crux of the problem is the socio-economic condition of the deprived people and nothing is being done so far.

Finally I would like to say that it is not the problem of Nepal Police alone, every aspect of the government, whether military or civilian, even the political parties must be coordinated together to solve the problem.

Narayan C. Thakur

In response too my letter to Army Chief, General Dharam Pal Bar Singh Thapa sent me a letter in which he mentioned  that 'winning the heart and mind' was vital in the fight against insurgency.