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Today's
Stories
March 1, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
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Corrie
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Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
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Click
Here for More Stories.
|
March 1, 2005
Golden Tar Heroin and the Black Prince
The
Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu
By
JOSEPH PIETRI
I first went to Nepal in 1970 it was
the end of the now famous Hippie Trail that started overland
from either Amsterdam or London. Buses full of Hippies would
disembark at the end of New Road and to this day this street
is called Freak Street. Nepal was Hippie nirvana being that marijuana
and hashish were legal and sold openly in Government licensed
shops! At the time there were no opium dens in Kathmandu nor
is opium grown or heroin produced in Nepal! There was no such
thing as a Nepalese junkie. Cannabis was only illegal to export
and Hippies caught at the airport were fined $100 USD and deported
on the next flight out of Kathmandu.
The King Mahendra died in 1972
and his son Birendra ascended to the throne and I remember the
most solemn ragas that mourned the old King's passing on Radio
Nepal. Who can forget the huge procession to Pashupatinath Temple
where the King was cremated, or the bizarre ritual of a Brahman
priest taking over the bad karma of the King and even getting
a share of his earthly possessions and then being banished from
the Kingdom on a Royal elephant. I left for India in 1973 just
before Cannabis prohibition in Nepal. Richard Nixon and his recently
formed DEA paid the new king 50-70 million dollars to outlaw
pot--his in a Hindu country where everyone must take cannabis
once a year on Lord Shiva's birthday. Hippies were deported to
India. It was a sad day on Freak Street.
I returned to Nepal in 1981
and to my amazement the country now had a heroin problem. Hashish
was 20-30 times more expensive than in 1970 and a very cheap
and low grade of smokable heroin was now making the rounds. The
Nepalese, not really knowing the difference between brown sugar
heroin and marijuana, were easily seduced by smack. Not only
that but Double UO Globe Brand heroin was available for export
the finest Golden Triangle heroin made. Heroin was now being
imported from Burma and brought overland from East Nepal on Army
and Police trucks by the Royal Family. The Royals control every
aspect of the black market in Nepal. What was once Hippie Nirvana
was now a major heroin hub.
Sometime in 1983 my Nepali
partner and I were invited to lunch at one of the Ministers'
homes. There over lunch and drinks he explained that for the
first time in the history of Nepal the Royal Nepalese soccer
team was going to compete at the Olympics in Los Angeles the
next summer. He said was working with Prince Gyanendra who was
in charge of the Olympic committee. Due to my long history in
Nepal they felt I could handle the merchandise they were sending
along with the team. I took it for granted that they were talking
about 150 kilos of hashish. He then spoke to my associate in
Nepalese and then talked directly to me that their intentions
were to send 150 kilos of heroin to LA. My first thought was
to look over at my Nepali associate and tell him that whatever
he promised these people to forget it. I explained to the Minister
it was impossible and managed to squirm my way out of there.
When I got back home my old
pal Patrick came by and I told him what had happened. Patrick
says that if I would have gone along with the Minister's proposal,
I would have ended up in prison or dead. I was being set up as
a fall guy for the Royal Family. The Black Prince, as he was
known around Kathmandu, had once been stopped with a bunch of
his cronies trying to lift the kneeling Malla King Statue in
Patan (a national treasure) with a crane! The policeman who stopped
this theft was "disappeared", but the statue stayed
a top its pillar, and the Black Prince was sent packing to Europe.
A bitter rivalry existed between
King Birendra and his brother Gyanendra that went back to the
1950s when King Mahendra and the Crown Prince fled to India fearing
an assassination attempt and left Gyanendra in Kathmandu as the
defacto king. Upon returning to Nepal, it went back to the status
quo. Gyanendra has always felt he would have made a better King
than his drunkard brother.
During the 1980s and the introduction
of brown sugar heroin into Nepal one of the casualties was the
Crown Prince, who was rumored to having been sent to rehab in
Switzerland. In 1984 the Nepalese Soccer team was detained at
LAX carrying that 150 kilos of pure heroin. It was quick news
as it disappeared instantly from the media and was never talked
about since. A year later bombs went off in the lobby of the
Annapurna Hotel (Royal Family owned) at the palace gates as well
as other government buildings, apparently in retaliation for
the mess in LA.
In 1986 Henry Kissinger and
a group of narcotics agents come to Kathmandu for a SAARC conference.
The agents bought 2 kilos of pure heroin on the back streets
of Asan Tol market with traveler checks! These two kilos they
threw down on the desk of Inspector General of Police D. B. Lama
and threaten to cut off all aid to Nepal. The agents produced
a list of all the people who were involved in the Cannabis trade
who still lived in Nepal. Soon wany Westerners with private vehicles
or extended Visas were rousted. Overnight the jails swelled with
Westerners and Nepalese most of whom were not involved in the
heroin trade. Nepalese and Westerners were tortured into confessions.
D.B. Lama was one of the front men for the Royal Family heroin
trade, sort of a sticky wicket, but I escaped the inquisition
to Bangkok and did not return to Nepal until 1988. The inquisition
was still going on so I left for good. D. B. Lama the Inspector
General of Police had been arrested. They found the pipes in
his house were pure gold painted over gray to resemble pipe and
boxes of foreign currency. I guess they traced old Henry the
K's traveler checks back to the Inspector General of Police himself
and the Royals were forced to sacrifice D. B. Lama.
Student demonstrations for
democracy, the Monarchy's medieval repressive tactics and the
attention it got around the world finally brought 30 years of
absolute rule to an end and in 1990 King Birendra reinstated
multi-party democracy in Nepal. A treaty was signed with Pakistan
and flights now come in from Karachi. Military ties were initiated
and with that Afghan heroin is now available by the ton in Kathmandu.
Nepal has become a major player on the global heroin trade.
Democracy brought a succession
of governments that throughout the 1990's were marked by one
being more corrupt than the last. In 1996 the Maoists took to
the field and it's been a bloodbath ever since with nearly 12,000
killed and disappeared as of this writing.
King Birendra never unleashed
the Royal Nepalese Army against the Maoist's and the gains they
made led to the Royal massacre of June 1, 2001. Everyone in the
way of the Black Prince becoming king was killed. Most media
today refer to it as the shoot out at the palace! It was a coup
d' etat engineered by the Prince and the Royal Army with
the blessings of outside interests. I was told that the Crown
Prince was executed at the Balaju army barracks where he had
run to escape the assassinations.
Very few Nepalese believe the
official account and the Crown Prince was an easy patsy due to
his long time heroin addiction and alcohol problems. There was
no way that the Black Prince would allow the junkie Crown Prince
to ascend to the throne if his brother should die suddenly, and
the King had health problems due to his alcohol abuse. The Military
felt the same way and the Black Prince is now the King of Nepal
and the iron rule of his father has returned.
The events of September 11th
altered the equation as Nepal joined the war on terror and allowed
B-52's to fly over the nation on their bombing runs into Afghanistan.
The King declareed the Maoist movement terrorists and now receives
unprecedented support from the US, UK, and India. American and
British Special Forces train the Royal army. The King hired 400
private mercenaries, who now lead the Royal Army into battle.
What has the Black King promised the Bush Administration for
US support?
The Nepalese Royal Family has
a long history of involvement with the CIA. Through out the 1960s
and 1970s the CIA maintained a secret base at Lo Mustang on the
Tibetan plateau bordering China. This was the jumping off point
for CIA-trained Tibetan Khampa guerillas fighting the Chinese.
Today they are building a road from the Indian border to Lo Mothang
and it's quite obvious that once again it will be used as a forward
base.
At this point the Maoist control
85 percent of the countryside and five districts outright in
Western Nepal. Peasant women, tired of being sold to brothels
in India, comprise 40 percent of the arms-carrying cadre. A free
election would bring Socialism to Nepal and if the people could
they would vote the King to be gone! The Maoist movement is a
Nationalist movement of people who are awakening from 250 years
of feudalism! The one road from the Indian Border town of Birgunj
to Kathmandu is easily shut down by strikes called by Maoist's!
The Royal Army is reduce to guarding Kathmandu and other major
border towns and protecting the convoys of supplies that keep
Kathmandu alive.
On February the 1, 2005, the
Black King dismissed the government and declares a state of emergency.
He then suspended telephone, internet, and air links, effectively
cutting off Nepal from the rest of the world. The Black King
assumeed total power and suspended constitutional freedoms of
press, speech, and expression, constitutional protection against
news censorship and preventative detention! Hundreds were jailed,
leaders of all major political parties were put under armed
house arrest. Students protesting the King in Pokhara were fired
upon from helicopters and 20 were wounded. The iron fist rule
of his father has returned.
Once Time magazine came
out with a report critical of King Mahendra. When the magazine
arrived at the news stand in Kathmandu that page had been completely
blacked out. Hitler, Stalin, Saddam had absolute power and now
the Black King, Every since the massacre at the palace they have
been trying to clean Gyanendra's image internationally by blaming
the heroin trade on his younger brother who was also killed at
the palace. The facts are that Gyanendra and his Uncle, who owned
the Annapurna hotel, have been heavily involved in the heroin
trade going all the way back to the 1960s. Nepal today is 8 times
poorer than in 1970.
How can that be with all the
foreign aid, the carpet industry, textile industry, tourist industry?
Think Marcos, for years the Royal family has siphoned off from
every dollar coming into Nepal. Nepal is a classic example of
failed American foreign policy and how we create terrorism. Today
we are supporting a heroin dealing despot king and again killing
people who can't afford shoes in the mountains and jungles of
Nepal.
Joe Pietri author The
King of Nepal. He can be reached at: jpietri@msn.com
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