In Their Own Words: Quotations From the Maoists
Here are recent statements from various media sources. Unless otherwise indicated, they are from Maoist leader known as Prachanda: 
-- “Since we belong to a communist party, our maximum goals are socialism and communism … Given the international power balance and the overall economic, political and social realities of the country, we can’t attain those goals at the moment.” In Kathmandu Post, February 7, 2006
-- “We say, let’s make a common army for constituent assembly and a democratic republic. Let’s form a parallel government of the parties and the Maoists.” In Kathmandu Post, February 7, 2006
-- [On conquering Kathmandu]: “We are not only talking about militarily. I believe we can, and we have to conquer Kathmandu both militarily and politically. That’s why we have not thought about it in a purely military way.”
[From a BBC interview, February 13, 2006; other Prachanda quotes below are from the same source.]
-- “A poor woman in a village with a gun, moving forward to build a new society, feels her life as a woman has been elevated.”
-- “I do not know that it was us who killed the taxi driver. We are investigating this – we are looking for who killed him. There is no proof that we killed him.”
-- “Where have we closed down schools?”
-- “The statement that we have forced people to support us is not true.”
-- “If we had wanted, we could have killed many candidates. Because we did not have the policy of killing them, they were not killed.”
-- “Therefore, we urge everybody not to participate in the election in anyway – not to file candidacy or participate in election campaigns. We warn those who ignore our requests to remain ready to face most serious consequences.” -– Pravakiran, CPN (Maoist) press release, January 28, 2006
-- “But we now have a common target – the autocratic monarchy. Since our working policy is now the same, we have forged this partnership. But tomorrow if the nature of the political intercontradiction changes, the nature of our relations could change as well.” -- Baburam Bhattarai, senior Maoist, Budhabar, January 18, 2006
-- “That doesn’t mean we are happy about 13,000 people being killed. For sure, we are saddened by it.”
U.S. Embassy Fact Sheet, Feb. 15, 2006