On August 20, 2003, a leader of the People's War that has been sweeping through Nepal, Chandra Prakash Gajurel, known to millions of people in Nepal and South Asia as Comrade Gaurav, was arrested by the Indian authorities as he attempted to travel to Europe to support the battle against imperialist intervention in his country. Since his arrest the reactionary monarchy ruling Nepal has been carrying out a series of legal and diplomatic moves in an attempt to secure Comrade Gaurav's extradition from India. For its part, the Indian government has in the past repeatedly sent Nepalese revolutionaries back to the dungeons and torture chambers of the regime in Kathmandu. And it has done this despite the fact that international law and treaties between India and Nepal expressly prohibit the extradition of people facing people persecution.
For now the Indian government has only claimed that Comrade Gaurav was in possession of false travel documents, but in countries like India this charge is normally dealt with as a minor matter and processed quickly. More troubling is the fact that while Comrade Gaurav remains in jail formal charges have yet to be filed and hearings in his case have been repeatedly postponed by the authorities. The fact that they are still holding Comrade Gaurav months later, with moves for extradition in the works, shows that what they are up to has nothing to do with "justice" and everything to do with political suppression. In short he has become a political hostage of the Indian government. For much of the duration of the People's War, the Royal Nepal Army has engaged in a US-counterinsurgency-style "dirty war", including by "disappearing" hundreds of revolutionaries. The World People's Resistance Movement urgently calls on progressive people around the world to defeat the attempt to turn this revolutionary leader over to the hands of his would-be executioners.
To try to justify this crime, the Indian authorities are loudly repeating US government slanders of the People's War and its leaders as "terrorist". But the world's press, even establishment media like the BBC, France's Le Monde, the New York Times and India Today, have had no choice but to acknowledge that millions of Nepalese have rallied to the side of the popular insurgency in Nepal. At the core of this is movement is the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), of which Comrade Gaurav - a member of the party's political bureau - is among the senior leaders. In no way can this struggle for liberation be called "terrorist".
After seven years of revolutionary struggle, the Nepalese people, among the poorest of the world's poor, now hold power in large parts of the countryside. They are seizing the land, building schools, organizing people's clinics and beginning to chart their own destiny. In doing so they have provided a great source of strength and inspiration for people all over the world who are also fighting to free themselves from the shackles of imperialist domination and oppression. Comrade Gaurav has been on the front lines of this struggle helping to lead it forward in Nepal and internationally.
The Nepalese armed forces have met the popular upsurge with vicious bloody repression. Amnesty International and many other human rights organizations have documented the campaign of torture, "disappearances" and the many people "killed while trying to escape" conducted by the US and Indian-backed Royal Nepal Army. A key part of any such campaign of suppression has always been targeting the leaders of the people's struggle. The World People's Resistance Movement calls on progressive people around the world to struggle to defeat the plans to extradite Comrade Gaurav to Nepal, and to demand his freedom. Act now, as tomorrow could be too late!