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14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

(www.tribuneindia.com)
560 points whatsupdog | 20 comments | 08 Sep 25 11:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.192s | source | bottom
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lionturtle ◴[08 Sep 25 11:52 UTC] No.45167176[source]▶
It was absolutely not just social media ban, it was mostly youth protesting against the corrupt government and unfairness, social media ban was one element that was against the freedom of speech, but it was right around the time where everyone was documenting the rich politicians, their business connections and their families that have been living lavishly and just inheriting the election seats from generation to generation and spinning beurocracy to their sides.

I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".

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factorialboy ◴[08 Sep 25 12:58 UTC] No.45167698[source]▶
Classic color revolution — China and India will be watching intently.
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alephnerd ◴[08 Sep 25 13:02 UTC] No.45167735[source]▶
China and India are meddling in this. Nothing in Nepali politics happens without either China or India's hands or implicit blessing. Heck, regional Nepali politicans will literally vie for Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad Yadav's (the two perpetual CMs of Bihar) backing.

Even the Armed Forces(pro-India) and the Armed Police Force (pro-China) are at each others throats.

Whenever India feels Nepal is getting too close to China, a crisis happens. When China feels Nepal is getting to close to India, a crisis happens as well.

It's like how Iraqi and Lebanese politics is always meddled in by Saudi and Iran.

Also, the social media ban is extremely damaging.

Most students use Google and YouTube to study, and WhatsApp is heavily used by Nepalis both domestically and abroad (a large portion of Nepalis work abroad in India, the Gulf, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as migrant workers) so people are cut off from communicating with each other and getting job offers.

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factorialboy ◴[08 Sep 25 13:15 UTC] No.45167866[source]▶
First, Maldives.

Then, Bangladesh,

Now, Nepal.

An unstable Nepal allows the destabilization of two critical states in India.

Regime change in India is the big prize.

--

China and India do meddle.

But a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who.

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JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 13:23 UTC] No.45167950[source]▶
> a classic color revolution, such as this one, is the signature of you-know-who

I literally don’t.

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1. adgjlsfhk1 ◴[08 Sep 25 13:27 UTC] No.45167992[source]▶
there's a conspiracy theory that every revolution of the past 100 years was caused by the cia.
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2. JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 13:28 UTC] No.45168006[source]▶
Oh yeah, I saw it in India when Bangladesh fell. Couldn’t possibly be her incessant and well-documented corruption. I also think Barack Obama was somehow involved.
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3. snapcaster ◴[08 Sep 25 14:17 UTC] No.45168614[source]▶
I don't like comments like this, because while you're right that many people think everything happening everywhere is the CIA. The CIA (and US gov) _has_ been involved in an absurd amount of regime changes (that we know about). CIA involvement in something like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

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4. JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 14:48 UTC] No.45169023[source]▶
> CIA involvement in something like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand

Without evidence, yes, it should be. Just as it should be dismissed, if proposed without evidence, that this was the product of Indian, Chinese or Iranian meddling. Particularly when we have credible evidence going the other way of legitimate reasons a population would flip out.

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5. seanmcdirmid ◴[08 Sep 25 14:53 UTC] No.45169091[source]▶
If the CIA was even close to being that competent our foreign policy and intelligence wouldn’t be so horrible.

A lot of authoritarians just like to blame their self grown domestic problems on the CIA. China having another stock market crash? The CIA must have done it.

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6. don_esteban ◴[08 Sep 25 15:00 UTC] No.45169167[source]▶
Corruption is endemic in many places, but somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption ....
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7. cherryteastain ◴[08 Sep 25 15:01 UTC] No.45169190[source]▶
In their defense, quite a few were

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9ta...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

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8. JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 15:28 UTC] No.45169530{3}[source]▶
> somehow the chance of regime change is more correlated with unwillingness to follow the USA dictate than with corruption

What did Nepal fail to do for America that supposedly caused this?

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9. JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 15:29 UTC] No.45169545[source]▶
> quite a few were

Bay of Pigs wasn't a revolution, it was a failed invasion. The others, however, absolutely were instigated by the CIA.

You can compile similar lists for Iran, Russia, France and India. Reflexively dismissing every coup, much less protest, as the product of foreign involvement without evidence isn't thoughtful.

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10. cherryteastain ◴[08 Sep 25 15:44 UTC] No.45169723{3}[source]▶
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_2506

> Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506) was a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the Cuban government headed by Fidel Castro. It carried out the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion landings in Cuba on 17 April 1961.

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11. JumpCrisscross ◴[08 Sep 25 15:47 UTC] No.45169773{4}[source]▶
Fair enough, the U.S. tried to be clandestine.
12. devsda ◴[08 Sep 25 17:52 UTC] No.45171491{3}[source]▶
US with its control of social media etc can push a narrative to instigate population of friendly or unfriendly countries. There's no way to know say for sure whether the protests were organic or inorganic.

Every country has problems that atleast look worthy of an uprising. CIA has both the means and the track record of messing with countries, so its natural to be suspicious.

If Russia had control of social media narrative in US and wanted to cause trouble, nobody would know for sure if an uprising was due to their meddling or due to current political climate.

Lack of evidence doesn't prove or disprove anything.

13. keybored ◴[08 Sep 25 18:07 UTC] No.45171707{3}[source]▶
How even-handed and fair.

These entities are in the business—by their very nature—to lie and hide their activities as much as possible.[1] To dismiss speculation out-of-hand because it has no evidence is ludicrous.

[1] Not only that but to actively push counter-narratives.

14. keybored ◴[08 Sep 25 18:08 UTC] No.45171717[source]▶
Calling theories about the CIA conspiracy-theories is like calling General Relativity a physics-theory. Well, yeah, you are correct.
15. snapcaster ◴[08 Sep 25 19:03 UTC] No.45172418{3}[source]▶
Please go through the article I linked and find some 20th century examples. _at the time of the conspiracy_ there was no solid evidence of their involvement. That implies your method isn't actually a good way to be aware of the ones the CIA is _actually doing_ versus authoritarians coping for their own failures
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16. AnimalMuppet ◴[08 Sep 25 19:13 UTC] No.45172571{4}[source]▶
When the CIA does something, we at the time don't know that the CIA is doing it (if they're doing it competently). That is true.

But run the experiment the other way. A friend of mine once said that if a light bulb burns out on Tierra Del Fuego, somebody claims that it's a CIA conspiracy. Of all the public claims (gated by some level of seriousness or authority) of CIA involvement, what fraction turned out to be true?

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17. HankStallone ◴[08 Sep 25 19:57 UTC] No.45173143{3}[source]▶
> If the CIA was even close to being that competent our foreign policy and intelligence wouldn’t be so horrible.

True, if the goal of the CIA is to provide quality intelligence to the elected US government. That's a pretty big assumption, though.

18. don_esteban ◴[08 Sep 25 21:18 UTC] No.45174133{4}[source]▶
Nepal is probably safe from US meddling (US has no interests there, India and China meddle in Nepal enough).

Pakistan/Bangladesh is another manner. The way Imran Khan was ousted...

19. bigyabai ◴[09 Sep 25 01:13 UTC] No.45176229{3}[source]▶
Yes and no. Very few contemporary governments are accusing the CIA of starting color revolutions, especially nowadays.

But historically there are definitely examples of the CIA achieving this. Iran's 1953 coup was overwhelmingly successful and a joint operation between MI6 and CIA. The consequences irrevocably tipped the balance of power away from Pan-Arabism and towards a globalist, American-driven order.

20. snapcaster ◴[09 Sep 25 15:13 UTC] No.45183078{5}[source]▶
Does the CIA have a longstanding documented history of burning out light bulbs? because they do for coups and other regime change efforts