For more on the situation in Nepal, I recommend @MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml’s comment here.
Following a “anti-corruption” protest movement spurred by a social media ban (but with much deeper roots) in which dozens of protestors were killed by state forces, the government of KP Oli has been ousted, and an interim leader is currently in power as the country prepares for elections. Notably, events have been characterized as “Gen Z protests”, and this leader was decided (at least partially) by a Discord vote. When a non-western government rapidly falls, it’s wise to at least glance in the direction of the United States, and there are almost certainly elements of color revolution here. But, as always, it’s more complicated than simple regime change - Nepal is a deeply troubled economy even as developing countries go.
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Despite winning 75% of the seats in parliament in 2017, the various communist parties have failed to unify towards forming a common agenda and solving the problems of the people. When the nominally united communist party split in 2021, infighting and opportunism eventually brought on the rightist politicians we see today.
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The Nepalese economy is not successful. Disasters are slow to be ameliorated, education and healthcare is underfunded, and poverty is fairly rampant. There have been significant developments made by the communist parties, such as electrification programs and some poverty reduction, but it has been insufficient.
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The petty bourgeois usually come from oppressed Hindu castes, and are frustrated by the domination of upper castes, and so are inspired by India’s BJP. They essentially want a return to monarchy, under the guise of anti-corruption, and despite their relatively small numbers, are powerfully organized.
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Of the countries that aren’t tiny islands, Nepal has the highest per capita rate of work migration, due to insufficient employment in Nepal. The jobs that Nepalese citizens receive overseas range from unpleasant to unbearable in both labour and wages, and this has generated rightful suspicion that the government cares more about foreign direct investors than their own citizens overseas.
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The government of KP Oli was close to the United States, and India’s Modi has promoted the BJP in Nepal. Both countries have sought to exert influence over Nepal, though Prashad speculates that, if there is indeed a foreign mastermind at work, India is more likely to be the culprit behind these recent protests, in a gambit to use the chaos to promote/install a far right monarchist government.
I agree with Prashad that it seems unlikely that mere electoral changes will result in anything terribly productive, though whatever government emerges will inevitably hoist the banner of anti-corruption to try and legitimize themselves. We have seen the same breakdown of electoralism as a meaningful pathway to solve national problems all across the world, from the superpowers to the poorest states. Until a rupture occurs, greater surveillance, policing, and repression seems guaranteed.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
There is an interesting article by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Nepal (RCPN) with a profile of the sides involved in Nepal’s situation with some new speculation:
Machine translated with my insertions and corrections
After the Gen-Z movement became explosive, an organization called ‘Hami Nepal’ suddenly started being promoted. Those who initially led the movement, called for people to take to the streets, and applied for permission from the CDO office for the program suddenly disappeared. Suddenly, Hami Nepal, Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Sah, and Hami Nepal President Sudan Gurung came to the front, claiming to be the real organizers of the movement.
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According to the organization’s [Hami Nepal] website, he [the group’s chairman] appears to be involved in anti-China activities, namely the Free Tibet movement. He still has the logo and link of ‘Students for a Free Tibet’ on his group’s website as a supporting organization.
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Their [RAW and CIA] pre-plan was to turn the supposedly peaceful movement into violent, to create an uncontrollable situation and achieve their goal. According to a source, they mobilized schoolchildren to the front line [on the first day of the protest]. They created a situation where the police would open fire and as soon as the police opened fire, they would order sharpshooters kept on standby to open fire and shoot students in their college uniforms targetting the head and chest.
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The source claims that the protesters themselves cleaned the streets and even managed the garbage themselves, as they suspected that such bullet casings would be found.
There are other interesting things in this and another shorter article, which discusses such an event’s nurturing through continuous government failures, but it is in Nepali; it contains a concerning shenanigan of the NGO that “organized” the protests:
They actually did this btw
… within two days of the formation of the government, the same group has started demanding the resignation of the newly appointed Prime Minister Sushil Karki, saying that she has not paid due attention to the treatment and compensation of the families of the martyrs and the injured.
Things are really murky on that. I do not know where it even originates from but it could be miss-information. Not really worth going into all that anymore, he has somehow turn most people wary of him after that stated being spread on social media.
Anyway things looking fine here. The pro-US government got oustead and the new government is also ‘liberal’ but more left than the Marxist-leninist party somehow.
No left really put their hope in a spontaneous horizontal movement with no leadership but it has helped release the pressure building in Nepal I guess.
Is there any actual evidence of this? I`d like to learn more in order to trust this. Was this posted here bofore? Sorry if I missed this, but this seems like a very serious accusation, organizing people who are willing to open fire opportunisticaly at a crowd that includes children is pretty heavy militia/gang warfare stuff, how would you even organize this in advance without being caught? Do people just keep high powered rifles in their backyard and nobody cares or what?
Someone willing to unironicaly claim “the police couldn’t possibly shoot peaceful protesters” doesn’t match the actual experience of the working class literaly anywhere on this god forsaken planet. I`d rather believe the simplest explanation if possible not some multi-layered conspiracy that includes the perpetrators “cleaning up” the evidence.
Like I’m willing to accept NGOs are involved but that seems like just a constant everywhere where NGOs exist, unless you can prove anything this is just copium isn’t it?
It’s not that far fetched given it’s pretty much exactly what happened in Ukraine in 2014.
The simplest explanation is that since it’s a US backed color-revolution, they are using the same tactics as Ukraine’s Maidan and the Xinjiang separatists and tons of other rightwing extremist groups that the US funds and organizes
Not that I know of, they don’t disclose their “source”. The fact that the children were kept in the front-lines is more or less true. About the cleaning, they did have a “cleaning campaign” but it was on the next day so I don’t know if it’s the same thing.
The sharpshooter thing sounds far-fetched and rather preposterous with a bit of copium added as well. RCPN has been trustworthy in the past so let’s see what they come up with in the next few days to support their claims.
bro they use the same playbook every time and “leftists” fall for it every time man
Watch the Brian Berletic video on this. Without a shadow of a doubt this is a US backed color revolution