The United States on Thursday removed Nepal's ruling Maoist party, which heads up a caretaker government in the Himalayan nation, from its blacklist of terrorist organisations. After almost a decade as a designated global terrorist body, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), or CPN(M), which laid down its arms in 2006 to enter politics, was struck off the list, the State Department said.
An estimated 16,000 people died in a brutal 1996-2006 "people's war" fought by the Maoists against the centuries-old and once absolute monarchy before the rebels turned to politics and swept to power in elections two years later. "After a thorough review" the State Department said the party was "no longer engaged in terrorist activity that threatens the security of US nationals or US foreign policy."
The delisting means that US organisations and companies can now conduct business with the Maoist leadership, and any property or interests that were frozen in the United States are no longer blocked. Formed in 1994, the party was designated a global terrorist entity by the United States in 2003 and added to the terrorist exclusion list the next year. "At the time of the designations, the CPN(M) was engaged in a violent war with the Nepalese government," a State Department official told.