Prachanda flies to Belarus after promising world revolution

Picture of Minsk in Belarus

August 13th, 2009 - 11:35 am ICT by IANS -
By Dipankar De Sarkar

London, Aug 13 (IANS) Nepal’s former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda has left for Belarus after telling supporters in London his Maoist party in Nepal is certain to usher in “world revolution”.

“The twenty-first century will be the century of world revolution,” Prachanda told a large gathering of supporters at a meeting in south-east London.

“We in Nepal are trying to develop new strategies and tactics. We cannot mechanically repeat the strategies and practices of the Russian and Chinese revolutions.

“We are confident that we will lead the (Nepali) revolution to success,” he declared at the meeting organised by the Nepali Samaj - a sister organisation of the opposition Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), of which Prachanda is chairman.

At one point during the meeting at Woolwich town hall Monday, Prachanda told a questioner about the “ongoing struggle in eastern India against a series of mining multinationals in the tribal areas”, and said NGOs and INGOs (international non-government organisations) “confuse the masses”.

Prachanda, who was in Britain on a private visit left Wednesday for Belarus, a major European outpost of Communism, from where he will travel to Russia before returning to Kathmandu, Nepali Samaj coordinator Rana Bahadur KC told IANS.

However, the reason for Prachanda’s visit to the British capital remained unclear.

Before leaving Nepal, the Maoist leader denied newspaper reports that he wanted to attend a meeting of an umbrella of international Maoist movements and assume its leadership.

Although one Nepali source in London insisted “he came for some purpose”, Rana Bahadur KC said Prachanda wanted to interact with his supporters in Britain.

“He wanted to meet the cadres and give us some ‘prashikshan’ (education), including a briefing on the situation in Nepal and what happened in the last party meeting,” Rana Bahadur KC said.