The Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 (1996-2006)
Note:
This was originally written on November 8, 2022. I also wrote a little article or journal (whatever you want to call it) about the Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧, another forgotten or obscure conflict that rarely gets discussed, that I'll post at a later date. The Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧 really shouldn't be that obscure or forgotten since it was front page news in the 80s. It was in the headlines for most of the decade, and most Americans 🇺🇸 knew about it, or knew of it even if they didn't know the details of why was it happening, and how it was progressing.
I mean, the US Embassy 🇺🇸 in Beirut was attacked, and the US Marine barracks 🇺🇸 (which also housed French service members 🇫🇷) in Beirut was also attacked during the war by terrorists. The group known as Hezbollah claimed responsibility for that attack, the same Hezbollah that many consider to be an Iranian proxy 🇮🇷. Of course, it was going to be all over the news in the US 🇺🇸. But, nowadays, the Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧 is rarely discussed in historical discourse or political discourse, despite that war being a huge part of the reason why Lebanon 🇱🇧 is the way it is today. But, I'll discuss this more in the note for the article that I wrote about the Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧 whenever I decide to post it.
This is about the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵, a conflict more obscure than the Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧 or the Myanmar civil war 🇲🇲 or the Yemeni Civil War 🇾🇪 or the Sudanese civil war 🇸🇩, which is technically the third or fourth one (Sudan 🇸🇩 has had a lot of civil wars throughout its history since gaining independence), but the current one is just referred to on Wikipedia as the "War in Sudan 🇸🇩." Though, I'm sure we'll all end up calling it the Third Sudanese Civil War 🇸🇩, since it is the third major civil war in the country since the second one which ended in 2005.
Now, I wrote this around the time that my grandpa was in hospital, and was on death's door. I was still writing it on the day that he passed away. So, this is more personal to me than some of the other stuff that I've written and posted on here or on DeviantART because it is tied to such a sad memory of mine 😞. You might wonder from reading that how I could write about a war when grieving the death of my grandfather, but I just did. I guess that's just how I was able to process my grief I don't know. To be perfectly clear, I was already writing it by the time he was in the hospital. I think I started writing it after he went into hospice, and the day we visited him for the last time.
I was watching a lot of YouTube video about the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 (or Nepali Civil War 🇳🇵 as it's also known as) put out by the YouTube channel, Journeyman Pictures. And I was really fascinated by it because Nepal 🇳🇵seemed like such a peaceful country. I say this in the main piece, or in one of the updates, but I was always under the impression that Nepal 🇳🇵 was this peaceful tranquil country, and that it was a Buddhist country ☸️ because Buddhism ☸️ is a religion that's practiced a lot in the Himalayas. It's the main religion of both Tibet and Bhutan 🇧🇹. And I thought the same about Nepal 🇳🇵. It seemed like the last place to have a civil war.
But no, that's not the case. Not only did Nepal 🇳🇵 have a civil war, it was also not a Buddhist country ☸️. It's a Hindu country 🕉️, and it's a divided country between class and ethnicity. The war was driven by long standing ethnic tensions within the country, and religious tensions within the country, as well as class divisions between the rich and the poor. It was also driven by discontent with the monarchy. The monarchy was becoming extremely unpopular within the country by the time the civil war broke out in 1996. That's another thing too, I didn't know that Nepal 🇳🇵 used to be a monarchy. Before it became the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal 🇳🇵, it was the Kingdom of Nepal 🇳🇵, and it had been a kingdom since the 18th century, since the year 1768. It was a kingdom before the 13 Colonies declared independence in 1776, and became the United States 🇺🇸. And this war was what finally ended the monarchy, and led to Nepal 🇳🇵 becoming a republic for the first time in its history.
The war also fascinated me because it was a communist ☭ and anti-communist war. The enemy side was the Communist Party of Nepal ☭🇳🇵 and they were referred to as "Maoists" because they followed the Maoist form of communism ☭. The Maoists were the ones really playing on the ethnic, religious, and class tensions in order to gain support and recruit more people, and turn people against the monarchy.
You'd think that this sort of thing would be happening during the Cold War when non-communist states fought themselves fighting against communist insurgencies ☭, especially in new countries that had gained independence from colonial powers, mostly European colonial powers but also Asian colonial powers too, namely Japan 🇯🇵. And these civil wars became proxy wars for the two superpowers in the world, the United States 🇺🇸 and the Soviet Union ☭, with each of them supporting or sponsoring the opposing sides in order to advance their own ideology, their own economic system, and just increase their own influence in whatever country or region that this communist insurgency ☭ was happening in.
But, no, this war happened during the post-Cold War era, after the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union ☭ and the Eastern Bloc both ceased to exist. Communism ☭ wasn't exactly a popular ideology or economic system that people wanted to implement and fight a war over at the time. But, not in Nepal 🇳🇵. Nepal 🇳🇵 had escaped the Cold War without facing a major communist insurgency ☭. So, it ended up facing one six years after the Cold War ended, and everyone had stopped giving a damn about this sort of thing. The United States 🇺🇸 no longer cared about communism ☭ rising in another country somewhere else in the world. The US 🇺🇸 had better things to worry about during the 90s and the 2000s, speaking of which...
It's not even just that this war started during the post-Cold War era of the 90s, but it was also happening during the War on Terror. The Nepali Civil War 🇳🇵 was still going on when 9/11 happened, and when the US 🇺🇸 and its NATO allies were fighting wars in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 and Iraq 🇮🇶. Yes, I know that the Iraq War 🇮🇶 was not a NATO war, since it was not conducted as an official NATO operation since Iraq 🇮🇶 did not attack the US 🇺🇸 beforehand. Afghanistan 🇦🇫 was a NATO operation since the US 🇺🇸 was attacked by al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan 🇦🇫, so Article 5 was triggered for the first and only time in history, and the entire NATO alliance went into Afghanistan 🇦🇫 along with the US 🇺🇸.
The US 🇺🇸 went into Iraq 🇮🇶 because we wanted to, not because they attacked us, and they were legitimate threat to our national security. They really weren't. Saddam Hussein's Iraq 🇮🇶 was already a weakened pariah state (the Gulf War had pretty much diminished Iraq 🇮🇶's military capability to the point that it would've taken decades for it to fully reconstitute its military forces to full combat effectiveness), and was not really in any real position to threaten anyone, let alone the world's one and only superpower.
So, it was a war that the US 🇺🇸 started, and it was not a defensive war, it was an offensive war, a war of choice. The US 🇺🇸 could have chosen not to invade Iraq 🇮🇶, but it didn't, because Bush really wanted to invade Iraq 🇮🇶 and topple Saddam's regime. The Bush administration had successfully scared the American public 🇺🇸 and weaponized their outrage from the 9/11 attacks to push through an invasion of Iraq 🇮🇶. And so, Article 5 of NATO was not triggered since Article 5 can only be triggered if one of the members of the alliance is attacked first. Not if they're the aggressor.
But anyway, 9/11 had happened and the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) was in full swing while the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 was still raging. By the time the war ended in 2006, the war in Iraq 🇮🇶 was at its worst point. The war had morphed into a civil war in the year 2006 as Shia and Sunni Iraqis 🇮🇶 were fighting and killing each other (neighbor had turned against neighbor) due to al-Qaeda in Iraq (the organization that would eventually become ISIS) blowing up a Shia mosque in Samarra in order to stoke sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis.
This civil war had triggered the US 🇺🇸 to increase the amount of troops they had in country in order to stop the killing, and bring the Shia militias and the Sunni militias under control, get them to stop fighting. This was called the "troop surge." By that time, by the years 2006 and 2007, the war in Iraq 🇮🇶 was extremely unpopular, as most Americans 🇺🇸 could see that the war was nothing but a scam essentially, and that the Bush administration had got us into a quagmire for no reason.
So, it's just so fascinating to me that while all of this was going on, Nepal 🇳🇵 was fighting a civil war of its own that no one outside of South Asia gave a damn about, and the war itself was sort of like a weird relic of the Cold War. The US 🇺🇸 and its allies were all in on the GWOT, and here, Nepal 🇳🇵 was fighting a war that kind of old news in a way since communism ☭ was no longer the West's main concern at the time.
The US 🇺🇸 paid a little bit of attention to what was happening in Nepal 🇳🇵, but not as much as they were invested in Iraq 🇮🇶 and Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and the other War on Terror battlegrounds throughout the world. And the only reason they did pay attention to it at all was because India 🇮🇳 was so invested in it, because you know, it was happening along their border. India 🇮🇳 even directly intervened in the war at one point as I mention in one of the updates I have in here. And India 🇮🇳's relationship with Nepal 🇳🇵 and its role in Nepali politics 🇳🇵 was also huge driving force of the civil war as I also mention in one of the updates.
And the only thing the US 🇺🇸 really did as far as I could tell is that they gave their tacit support to the monarchy, and vocally said in public that they wanted the monarchy to win against the Maoist insurgents. But then, they withdrew their support for the monarchy after the monarchy became too authoritarian and was violently cracking down on political dissent. Beyond that, the US 🇺🇸 really didn't do anything for Nepal 🇳🇵. They paid as much to attention to Nepal 🇳🇵 as they're currently paying to both Myanmar 🇲🇲 and Sudan 🇸🇩, as in, not a whole lot.
I mean, the Senate passed a bill with aid packages for both Ukraine 🇺🇦 and Israel 🇮🇱 (and also Palestinian refugees 🇵🇸 in Gaza by extension) and are trying to get it through the House, but there are no aid packages in that spending bill for Myanmar 🇲🇲 and Sudan 🇸🇩, because the US 🇺🇸 doesn't support either of those countries, they don't support the governments of those countries, and doesn't military alliances or partnerships with them and thus aren't invested in them in any way. The US 🇺🇸 could support the anti-junta rebels in Myanmar 🇲🇲, since they're fighting against an oppressive and genocidal military dictatorship that's backed by both Russia 🇷🇺 and China 🇨🇳, and they could use some more weapons and equipment even though they've done pretty well with the stuff they have. But, the US 🇺🇸 isn't doing that, and they likely aren't going to do that.
What happens in Myanmar 🇲🇲 or Sudan 🇸🇩 really doesn't effect American national security 🇺🇸 in a way that what happens in Ukraine 🇺🇦 or even Israel 🇮🇱 does. It was really the same deal with Nepal 🇳🇵 during the 2000s, during the civil war and the War on Terror. Nepal 🇳🇵 just isn't a strategically important country for the US 🇺🇸. It's more strategically important to India 🇮🇳 as it's a way for them to counter the influence of China 🇨🇳, even though China 🇨🇳 has gained more influence in Nepal 🇳🇵 in recent years.
Speaking of Sudan 🇸🇩, the US 🇺🇸 paid more attention to Sudan 🇸🇩 than Nepal 🇳🇵 at the time because the Sudanese government 🇸🇩 under Omar al-Bashir was committing a genocide inside the Darfur region, and the US 🇺🇸 was trying to get the international community to act on it and stop it using the UN 🇺🇳 as a channel. But, because the UN 🇺🇳 has become pretty ineffective, and unable to stop any real crisis throughout the world, nothing really happened, and the Darfur genocide 💀 (the first genocide of the 21st century) was allowed to continue, and the Omar al-Bashir regime faced no consequences for what they did in Darfur.
Omar al-Bashir himself didn't face any accountability until after he was overthrown in a military coup, and the military handed him over to the ICC ⚖️ and he was tried at The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, since you know, he perpetrated and oversaw a genocide. He also gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda before they moved over to Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and began operating there thanks to the Taliban giving them safe haven. BTW, had Omar al-Bashir not evicted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda after the attacks in Kenya 🇰🇪 and Tanzania 🇹🇿, and he still allowed them operate within Sudan 🇸🇩 and carry out their operations, including the 9/11 attacks, Sudan 🇸🇩 would've been the country we would've invaded instead of Afghanistan 🇦🇫. Just let that sink in.
So, anyway, I'll stop rambling on, and let you to get the main piece and the updates. Just one more thing before I let you go, as I mentioned before, the war goes by two slightly different names, the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 and the Nepali Civil War 🇳🇵 because the two demonyms for Nepal 🇳🇵 is Nepalese 🇳🇵 and Nepali 🇳🇵. For the sake of brevity, and consistently, I will be referring to it as the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 for the rest of its post.
I will also link a couple of Nepalese songs 🇳🇵 that I like, and I think will help you get into the mindset of Nepal 🇳🇵 during and after the war. One of them is the current national anthem under the Federal Democratic Republic, one of them is the old national anthem under the Kingdom, and them one is a royalist song talking about great the king is. I mean, the old national anthem is pretty much like that too, where it talks about how great the monarchy is, but that royalist song I'm talking about is more specifically about the king and how great the country was for having him. Got it? Good. On with the show, so to speak.
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Update (Sunday September 17, 2023):
🇳🇵
There's one thing about this summary of the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 that I need to correct, and it has to do with the murder of the nine royal family members, including the king and queen. I watched a video on YouTube by a channel called Unknown Armies talking about the war in the context of how it inspired the video game, Far Cry 4, and through watching that video, I learned a lot more about the war, and the overall political situation in Nepal 🇳🇵 before and during the war. Needless to say, it was a bit of a mess, even on the Maoist side. There was infighting and factionalism within both sides of the war. But, that's not what this update is about. It's about the murder of those royal family members. Apparently, no body actually knows who was responsible for the murders. It's been an unsolved mystery ever since, and no one has claimed responsibility.
But, most people agree that the murders were likely an attempt by some group to take over the government, by eliminating the king and queen, and other members of the royal family. The Maoists actually denied responsibility for the murders, and have dismissed any notion that they were the culprits. In fact, they said that they believe the murders were an attempt to blame them for killing the king to justify an escalation of the war, and to vilify and demonize the Maoists among those were neutral or were undecided. Whether you want to believe the Maoists or not is up to you. Frankly, going by Unknown Armies's video, it seems like neither side was all that trustworthy or reliable.
But, anyway, I wanted to write this update, and correct any potential mistake or inaccuracy I had in this summary. But, I also learned from watching Unknown Armies's video that China 🇨🇳 actually supported the Nepalese government 🇳🇵 in the war, rather than the Maoists, which was kind of surprising to me since they were called Maoists, and they followed Maoism, Mao Zedong's unique form of communism ☭.
But, I suppose China 🇨🇳 had long abandoned Maoism by this point, in favor of Deng Xiaoping Theory, since that was the thing that made China 🇨🇳 rich 🤑, while Maoism only led to extreme poverty, famine, and death 💀. Of course, Deng Xiaoping Theory does not completely reject Maoism or Marxist-Leninism, and instead seeks to be a different interpretation of those two ideologies for the modern age, by adding a little free enterprise into the mix.
Deng's China 🇨🇳 was a state capitalist system, where there was free enterprise and private ownership to help the economy grow, but the state still followed socialist ideology and a socialist structure; the Communist Party ☭ was still a communist party ☭. That was what lifted China 🇨🇳 up from the abyss and towards economic prosperity, leaving behind the suffering and hardship that had dominated the Mao era.
So, I guess it's not that surprising that the China 🇨🇳 of the 1990s and 2000s would support a government that was fighting against an insurgent group that followed the same ideology as their founding leader, Chairman Mao; they no longer really followed that ideology by that time, and saw it as the thing that stunted their growth, and prevented them from achieving global power and influence. India 🇮🇳 also got involved in the war, and supported the government side as well. The Maoists were even arguing and fighting amongst themselves about India 🇮🇳's involvement in the war, as one faction of the Maoists accused the other of working with India 🇮🇳, even though, there was no evidence of that, and India 🇮🇳 didn't get involved until much later on into the war.
Another thing I learned is that Nepal 🇳🇵 is a Hindu country 🕉️, not a Buddhist one ☸️; 81.19% of the population are Hindus 🕉️. I suppose I assumed that they were a Buddhist country ☸️ because they're located in the Himalayas, and Buddhism ☸️ is a dominant religion in that region, especially in places like Tibet and Bhutan 🇧🇹. But, no, Nepal 🇳🇵 is a Hindu country 🕉️, and is much culturally, linguistically, and even ethnically closer to India 🇮🇳 than Tibet or Bhutan 🇧🇹.
In fact, that was one of the main driving forces behind the civil war. The ruling class was apart of the Khas ethnic group (which are the majority ethnic group in the country) and were Hindus 🕉️, whereas the other ethnic groups in the country were not Hindus 🕉️, but were Buddhists ☸️, and other religions. And the other ethnic/religious groups felt mistreated, discriminated against, or ignored by the ruling class, and they felt that the ruling class's ethnicity and religious affiliation led to them having close ties with India 🇮🇳, which is why the Maoists and their supporters in the rural areas didn't like them or trust them; the Maoists really didn't like India 🇮🇳 at all, and didn't want Nepal 🇳🇵 to have close ties with them or be influenced by them in any way. So, the conflict had an ethnic and religious component to it as well, not just a purely political component to it.
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Update (Friday October 6, 2023):
The video that I originally linked to in the last update was deleted from YouTube. Unknown Armies deleted all of his videos because some of his videos got copyright claimed, and to avoid getting his channel struck, he deleted all of his prior videos except for the update video in which he gave this bad news. In addition to deleting all of his videos, Unknown Armies also said that he was going to be taking a break from YouTube. He didn't say for how long, and when he'll be back, but he did say he will return at some point in the future and he will start making videos again.
He did say that all of the videos he deleted from the channel will be back when he comes back, but he did say some of them may be rewritten and remade. So, expect all of his videos to make a return, but in a different form. Whether his Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 video will be one of his videos that will be rewritten is yet to be seen. He did also say that while he is taking a long and indefinite hiatus from YouTube, and his Unknown Armies will be inactive, his Minecraft YouTube channel will remain open, and will remain active as a way of holding his most loyal viewers over until he brings the Unknown Armies channel back. I'm not into Minecraft, so I won't be tuning into that channel.
So, I apologize if you wanted to see that video, it was the basis behind the previous update, but the video's currently unavailable, and even if and when it comes back, may not be exactly the same. So, I was left with no other choice than to remove the link. You know, why leave a link to a video that's no longer available and has been deleted from the platform? All I can say is take it up with Unknown Armies since he was the one who deleted it, and decided to take a break from YouTube.
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Update (Tuesday October 10, 2023):
🇳🇵
There's another correction that I have to make. It's a correction of the previous correction I made. Remember when I said the murders of the royal family were unsolved, and the identity of the killer(s) was unknown? Well, it turns out that's not really true. The murders were technically solved, and the identity of the killer was revealed. The killer was Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, he was the perpetrator of the Nepalese royal massacre 🇳🇵. That's right, the royal family was murdered by one of their own. He technically committed suicide after killing his father, his mother, his sister, and other members of the royal family.
After shooting all of them to death, he turned the gun on himself, and shot himself in the head, but he didn't die right away. He was in a coma for three days until he died on June 4, 2001; meaning that despite being next-in-line and inheriting the throne after he murdered his father, Dipendra didn't get to enjoy his time on the throne, as he was in a coma in the hospital for three days and then died; his uncle, Gyanendra took the throne and became the next king of Nepal 🇳🇵 after Dipendra died. The only part that's an actual mystery is Dipendra's motive for the murders.
The most commonly accepted theories are that he wanted to marry some woman ♀︎ named Devyrani Rana, who he met in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧. But, because she was from a lower class royal family in India 🇮🇳, and because her father had certain political alliances, Dipendra's family (the royal family of Nepal 🇳🇵) didn't approve. Devyrani's family was actually one of the wealthiest families in India 🇮🇳, and were possibly even wealthier than the Nepalese monarchs🇳🇵 themselves. So, there might've been a sense of jealousy within the Nepalese royal family 🇳🇵. Devyrani's mother had told her not to marry Dipendra because would mean a drop in her standard of living.
The prospective bride chosen for Dipendra by the Nepalese royal family 🇳🇵 was from the main line of Chandra Shumsher line of the Rana Dynasty. But, Dipendra didn't want to marry the woman ♀︎ his family had chosen for him, he wanted to marry Devyrani. So, he decided to kill his family as revenge for not letting him marry the woman ♀︎ he wanted. And he shot himself perhaps he knew the repercussions of him murdering his family, and didn't want to face any of the consequences, or perhaps he felt guilty about killing his family for such a petty reason, over marital disagreements.
Another theory is that if Dipendra married Devyrani like he wanted then there would've been a higher chance of greater Indian influence 🇮🇳 on the country, which the palace strongly opposed. But, that theory seems incomplete to me. It explains why the royal family may have opposed the marriage, but it doesn't explain why Dipendra decided to kill them. But, I'm going off of what Wikipedia said, and that's all they said as far as the "India theory 🇮🇳" is concerned.
I will say that this theory does show that the Maoists and their supporters weren't the only ones who were skeptical of Indian influence on Nepal 🇮🇳🇳🇵; even the royal family didn't fully trust the Indians 🇮🇳, and wanted their country to have own identity, their own independence, sovereignty, and autonomy, and didn't want to be influenced by an outside power, even a close and relatively friendly neighbor like India 🇮🇳. Other theories allege that Dipendra was simply unhappy with the direction the country was going in, how it was going from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, and all the powers of the monarchy that had been stripped away following the 1990 People's Movement.
Other more conspiratorial theories suggest everything from a CIA and R&AW (Indian Research and Analysis Wing 🇮🇳) planned assassination to Gyanendra (the guy who actually became king after the massacre) being the true culprit and mastermind. But, as you all know, conspiracy theories are all bullshit, and cannot be trusted. So, I personally don't buy any of this unsubstantiated claims. I mean, why would the CIA want to assassinate the royal family of Nepal 🇳🇵? The United States 🇺🇸 cared so little and paid so little attention to the civil war, that I just can't see them getting involved in Nepal 🇳🇵's internal politics, even clandestinely, and plotting to assassinate the royal family.
America 🇺🇸 had nothing to gain from killing the king and queen, or any of the other royal family members that were murdered by Dipendra. If anything, they'd have everything to lose from killing the king and the queen, because it would've meant destabilizing the country, and perpetuating the violence, which is exactly what happened; the massacre led to the further destabilization of Nepal 🇳🇵, and led to the prolonging and further escalation of the civil war, as well as the monarchy becoming more and more authoritarian, in an attempt to restore absolute rule; which was something that made the US 🇺🇸, the UK 🇬🇧, and India 🇮🇳 withdraw their support for the Nepalese government 🇳🇵. That was probably one of the big contributing factors in why the Nepalese government 🇳🇵 decided to abolish the monarchy, and transform the country from a monarchy (an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and back to an absolute monarchy) to a republic.
The Nepalese royal massacre 🇳🇵 played a key role in ending the Kingdom of Nepal 🇳🇵 and led to the creation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal 🇳🇵, which I imagine was not in America 🇺🇸, Britain 🇬🇧, India 🇮🇳, or even China 🇨🇳's best interest; I imagine they all wanted the monarchy to continue in some form, as they saw it as the only path to stability within in Nepal🇳🇵, but they ultimately and begrudgingly accepted that the monarchy was abolished and replaced with a republic. What could they have done about it? Overthrow the new government and reinstall the monarchy back in power?
Nah, Nepal 🇳🇵 isn't valuable enough for something like that, at least not to the United States 🇺🇸; and even if it was, it would just make things worse, and possibly lead to another war, this time a counterinsurgency war with Nepalese insurgents 🇳🇵 fighting against foreign invaders/occupiers, whether they be American 🇺🇸, British 🇬🇧, Indian 🇮🇳, or Chinese 🇨🇳. Though, like I said before, India 🇮🇳 did directly intervene in the civil war, but that was a completely different situation, that intervention was for a different reason; it was to assist the current government at the time (the monarchy) in defeating the Maoist insurgency and restoring order to the country.
What I'm suggesting is a regime change war akin to Iraq 🇮🇶, Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and even Panama 🇵🇦, going all the way back to Panama 🇵🇦 in the late 80s and early 90s, when the US 🇺🇸 invaded Panama 🇵🇦 to remove Manuel Noriega from power, and replace his regime with a democratic government. It was the democratically elected government that Noriega had suppressed and overturned to continue his own dictatorial rule (his illegitimate dictatorial rule).
Yes, Noriega pretty much did what Trump tried and failed to do here in the US 🇺🇸 back in 2021, as if we needed any more evidence to prove that Trump is a criminal wannabe autocrat who doesn't deserve to be president ever again. Noriega already was a criminal in the drug trade before becoming the president and then dictator of Panama 🇵🇦. It would be something more like that, where instead of assisting the current government in power, the foreign intervention is to remove that government and replace it with something else, whether that'd be the previous government or a completely new one.
I don't think the US 🇺🇸, the UK 🇬🇧, India 🇮🇳, or China 🇨🇳 would've tried something that, and I think it would've been a really bad idea for them to do so, especially so soon after the civil war ended and especially since the new government (at the time) was more democratic and was objectively better than the monarchy (at least during the late stages of the civil war); this would've been a case of the US 🇺🇸 deposing a democracy with military force rather than an autocracy (you know, a dictatorship), which would've been a pretty bad look for the US 🇺🇸 as the premier democracy in the world, especially so soon after Iraq 🇮🇶, when that war was spiraling out of control.
So, there's no logic in the CIA plotting the royal family's assassination. The same goes for India 🇮🇳 and their intelligence service, the R&AW, they had nothing to gain, and everything to lose from whacking the royal family. If anything they would've more to gain from keeping the royal family alive, and keeping the monarchy in power, and then removing the republic that took its place, but as I explained, that too would've been a bad idea, and wouldn't have been in the US 🇺🇸, the UK 🇬🇧, India 🇮🇳, and China 🇨🇳's best interest; China 🇨🇳 was a big player in the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵and Nepalese political crisis 🇳🇵 too, which makes sense since China 🇨🇳 directly borders Nepal 🇳🇵 just like India 🇮🇳 does.
But, that's as much as I'll say about that. One thing you gotta know about conspiracy theories is that you do not debunk bullshit, you dismiss. If you try to debunk it, it just reinforces the conspiracy theory in the minds of conspiracy theorists, and makes them believe it even more; that's the psychology of conspiracy theorists. And I don't want to contribute to that. Me, saying all that might've been pushing it.
But, anyway, I just wanted to write this update, and let you know that I got it wrong in my first update. But, don't be too hard on me, I was just going by what Unknown Armies had said in his video on the subject. I was just going by what he said, and I assumed his information was accurate, since he's one of the few English speaking YouTubers who's done a video about the Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵, and the Nepalese royal massacre 🇳🇵.
But, I guess this is just another reminder why shouldn't trust every history video you see on YouTube, and automatically assume it's accurate. History YouTubers get things wrong all the time, and sometimes their videos are just plain inaccurate. Maybe, this will be one the things Unknown Armies will correct in his remake of that video because he suggest in his update video that he was going to rewrite and remake the videos he deleted from his channel. His Nepalese Civil War 🇳🇵 video will likely be one of them. If it isn't, then I'll be a bit disappointed.
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All these years, I had no idea that there even was a civil war in Nepal 🇳🇵. I guess, I was wonder the impression that Nepal 🇳🇵 was a peaceful nation that had no conflict externally or internally because it's a predominantly Buddhist nation ☸️. But, the fact that it is Buddhist nation ☸️ should've clued me in that there a civil war there since religion does lead to conflict. I also didn't know that Nepal 🇳🇵 was a secular republic today.
I was under the impression that it still was under a monarchy, much like the neighboring Bhutan 🇧🇹 is. But, the Nepalese monarchy 🇳🇵was another contributing factor to the civil war. The war started when the Maoists murdered nine members of the royal family, including the king and the queen. And the civil war is likely partially what led to the monarchy's downfall, and the country's transition to a republic.
I was also surprised that this was a communist insurgency ☭, specifically a Maoist insurgency. The war started in 1996, 5 years after the Cold War ended. So, the fact that there was a communist insurgency ☭ after the Cold War ended, and communism ☭ was no longer viewed as an imminent threat, or seen as the top priority of the US 🇺🇸 and its allies is pretty surprising. The US 🇺🇸 was barely involved in the war, except maybe giving political support to the Nepalese government 🇳🇵. The US 🇺🇸 was much more focused on the War on Terror, and fighting Islamist groups ☪️ after 9/11, and they didn't take any time to prioritize Nepal 🇳🇵.
In a way, it sort of parallels what's happening now with how the US 🇺🇸 is so focused on supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦 in its war against Russia 🇷🇺, countering Chinese influence 🇨🇳 within the Indo-Pacific region, and preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan 🇨🇳🇹🇼, that they have completely forgotten about Myanmar 🇲🇲, and they are not prioritizing it at all; no body is, except maybe ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), but barely.
I mean, the US 🇺🇸 condemned the coup in 2021, but hasn't actually done anything to stop the military junta, or support the rebels because since the coup happened, there's been a brutal civil war going on in Myanmar 🇲🇲, and the military junta is committing genocide against many of the country's ethnic minorities. This is despite the fact that the military junta is supported by both Russia 🇷🇺 and China 🇨🇳, and the rebels are all fighting for freedom and democracy, all things that the US 🇺🇸 cares about. Anyway, back to Nepal 🇳🇵.
The civil war lasted until 2006, which means that there was a communist rebellion ☭ going on while the US 🇺🇸 was focused on the War on Terror, and defeating al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups ☪️, think about that for a moment; a conflict that we would usually associate with the Cold War, and assume took place during it, was actually happening at the same as the War on Terror, when Islamic terrorism ☪️ was seen as the big threat 🤯. But, ultimately, the Maoists failed to overthrow the monarchy, and create a communist Nepal 🇳🇵☭, despite winning support from the rural population initially.
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But, in a way, the Maoists did sort of succeed in their goal in getting rid of the monarchy, and turning Nepal 🇳🇵 into a secular republic. It just didn't happen by their hands, and it happened 2 years later, in 2008, after the civil war was over, and the insurgency was defeated. It was also a parliamentary democracy, and not a communist one-party state ☭ in the vein of Vietnam 🇻🇳, Laos 🇱🇦, China 🇨🇳, North Korea 🇰🇵, Cuba 🇨🇺, or even the Democratic Kampuchea, the Maoist communist state ☭ that ruled Cambodia 🇰🇭 from 1975 to 1979 and perpetrated the Cambodian genocide 💀.
The Democratic Kampuchea and the Khmer Rouge were the reasons why people were so concerned about the Maoists winning the civil war in Nepal 🇳🇵. Maoism is one of the worst forms of communism ☭ that there is, arguably even worse than Stalinism. Maoism has led to the deaths of millions, through murderous totalitarianism and poorly planned and implemented collectivist policies. The name comes from Mao Zedong, the former dictator of China 🇨🇳.
He implemented the Great Leap Forward, which led to one of the worst famines in human history (with around 15 or 55 million deaths 💀); and the Great Leap Forward was a Maoist policy. He also started the Cultural Revolution which was another Maoist policy that led to thousands or millions of deaths 💀; the exact number of people killed during the Cultural Revolution is not known. That was Maoists' goal from the beginning, to turn Nepal 🇳🇵 into a communist regime ☭ like those past and current communist states ☭ that I mentioned, and in that narrow sense, they failed.
This is a Nepalese royalist song 🇳🇵:
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