What started off as a strand about that terrorist Baburam was skilfully manoeuvred into a highly jaundiced discussion on the army’s imperfections that basically labelled our soldiers as the terrorists and the Maoists as the saviours - no doubt the Maoist high command have been made proud by such sophistry on the part of some interlocutors. But such venal efforts hardly matter. Whether one describes oneself as “super independent”, “super very independent”, “super objectively really independent”, the fact remains that Baburam, his wife, Hisila, his boss, Prachanda, and the rest of the Maoists are terrorists – it is really that simple. The tragedy for the Maoists is that the only way ahead for them is oblivion and compared to the LTTE’s leadership, their elimination will be a mere footnote.

Yakthung ji- In over 25 years of conflict, which lead to the elimination of the LTTE’s leadership, around 80,000 lives were lost. That’s 80,000 too many lives. The choice there was to take on the terrorists or submit to their dictates. We know what path was opted for and what the results are. With India no longer as accommodating as before, it would take lot less to eliminate the Maoist leadership, probably not exceeding 200 targets, with 300 to 400 in total – that is, if the likes of junior Dahal are thrown in for good measure. In fact, it will beless even compared to Chile in 1973. It might be apt for civil society wallahs like Deverndra Raj and Mathura Shrestha to use such emotive words as “genocide”, but the facts speak otherwise and anyone who has even basic knowledge of the holocaust would find that sort of comparison downright silly.

As I said previously, if you want to star as a Kul Bahadur or a Phudong or act as the human shield for these terrorists, that’s your choice. We respect that. You are more than welcome to play the part of the useful idiot for one and a collateral damage statistic for the other side. But I quite agree, that before we allow you launch yourself into martyrdom, we must give these Maoist terrorists enough rope to hang themselves with. For now, it’s the language of consensus, peace, brotherhood/sisterhood, but we all know that these Maoists chose terrorism as their strategy and when your strategy is wrong, no matter what tactical adjustments are made, it won’t make the slightest difference. At long last, it’s good to see that the conditions are coming just right for the rest of us to pay these Maoist terrorists back with interest and in some respects we need to thank lead terrorists like Baburam for this.

Sid – what don’t you get? Have you forgotten how the Maoists drove opponents out of the villages if not murdered them wholesale? Even with such terror, they could not secure a majority in the CA elections. And I don’t have any qualms about saying that democracy might have faults but there is yet to be found a system that’s better and in that sense you do get anomalies: yes, the Germans voted for the Nazis, but did that make the outcome any better for them? What is not acceptable is that terrorists like the Maoists and Hamas are out to subvert this very system to impose their warped ideology on others as the Nazis tried to do. That is my point of departure with you. Maoists are terrorists. Their goals have never changed. So far we have resisted them. Now it’s time to take the war to them and do away with this parochial, defensive mentality. My friend the conditions now are very different to what they were when Girija wanted to use the army against them. He was prevented from doing so by the palace – but you know that already as someone who supported Gyane. So much time has been wasted in pandering to these terrorists. No matter how much you may wish to preserve your hero Baburam, it’s just not going to happen even if he survives the internal purges. As the chief ideologue of this terrorist outfit he has a great deal to answer for and the time of reckoning is fast approaching. And this time, these terrorists have nowhere to hide.