The ruling Nepal Communist Party Co-chairman and ex-Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Pra­chanda’ must have been aware of the risks of travelling to the United States, if only to treat his wife this time. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US was among the first countries to designate the warring Maoists in Nepal ‘terrorists’. Only in 2012, six years after the Maoists had joined mainstream politics, were the former insurgents removed from the infa­mous list.

 

Before leaving for the US on March 17, Dahal had appar­ently secured an iron-clad pledge of ‘immunity’ from the Americans. Yet an unpleasant surprise awaited him when he landed on US soil. Officials from Nepali Embassy in Washing­ton DC surrounded him and tried to whisk him away, “almost as if I was still underground,” Dahal later recounted. Only later did he learn that one Dr Tilak Shrestha of the Nepali Congress PR wing in the US had ‘informed’ the FBI that a ‘ter­rorist’ responsible for the death of ‘17,000 innocent Nepali people’ was on American soil.

 

Even though Dahal had gotten a ‘no-investigation’ assur­ance from the US prior to his trip, he must have known that the American judiciary works independently from the US government. Had someone gone to a US court by invoking the UN’s ‘universal jurisdiction’—whereby someone impli­cated in ‘flagrant violation of international humanitarian law’ can be prosecuted for their crimes anywhere in the world— Dahal might have been in trouble. In 2016, Dahal had had to cancel a trip to Australia after a case was lodged against him with the New South Wales government. Before that, in 2013, a Nepal Army colonel had been arrested in the UK under universal jurisdiction.

 

Dahal knows that no future trip to western countries will be without risk, especially if transitional justice in Nepal is not settled to the satisfaction of the international community. But even if it is, Dahal or any of the former Maoist leaders will never be completely out of the woods. The Americans felt the need to humor the co-leader of the ruling party at a time they are looking to increase their footprint in Nepal under their new Indo-Pacific Strategy. Should the American priorities change tomorrow, Nepali communists, and especially the for­mer Maoists, could once again find themselves under Amer­ican scrutiny. Unfortunately for them, the American sway in the western world extends far beyond the US borders.