Nepal’s Color Revolution: US Funding Under Scrutiny Amid Country’s Political Upheaval

By Kit Klarenberg – Sep 17, 2025

In recent weeks, Nepal has been engulfed in chaos. Public and private buildings have been set ablaze, and dozens of civilians have been killed in incidents that many believe bear the imprint of Western involvement.

On September 9, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. The Western media has universally framed the upheaval as spontaneous revolutionary fervour on the part of Kathmandu’s “Gen Z”, motivated by anger over official corruption, unemployment, state efforts to censor social media,  and more.

However, there are unambiguous indications that the insurrectionary disarray has been long in the making and assisted by spectral, foreign forces.

The so-called “Gen Z” protests comprise a cluster of local youth activist groups, and are widely dubbed “leaderless”, although Hami Nepal has clearly emerged at the movement’s forefront.

English language Nepali Times has reported that the hitherto unknown NGO “played a central role in guiding the demonstrations, using its Instagram and Discord platforms to circulate protest information and share guidelines.”

The group was established to assist victims of earthquakes – a common occurrence in the country – and provide food, medical and other aid to disadvantaged Nepalese communities.

Subsequently, Hami Nepal oversaw the election of Kathmandu’s interim premier Sushila Karki on September 12, via the highly unorthodox and completely unprecedented expedient of an online vote via Discord.

The NGO’s chat group reportedly boasts 145,000 members, although it’s unclear how many people ultimately voted for Karki. The Western media, and local journalist Prayana Rana, a fervent supporter of the unrest who considers the palace coup to be wholly legitimate and organic, has acknowledged choosing a leader in this manner to be deeply problematic:

“It is much more egalitarian than a physical forum that many might not have access to. Since it is virtual and anonymous, people can also say what they want to without fear of retaliation. But there are also challenges, in that anyone could easily manipulate users by infiltration, and using multiple accounts to sway opinions and votes.”

Still, Karki has firmly pledged to only serve six months in the post until elections are held. She herself has an impressive revolutionary history, having participated in the 1990 People’s Movement that successfully overthrew Nepal’s absolute monarchy, for which she was jailed.

In June 1973, her husband hijacked a plane, stealing vast sums of money to fund armed resistance against the country’s brutal regime, which similarly landed him in prison. Karki’s commitment to seriously tackling corruption as Nepal’s Chief Justice led to her politically-motivated impeachment in June 2017, after just one year.

It is entirely uncertain who or what will replace Karki, and by which mechanism they will attain office. Nonetheless, that Hami Nepal, a previously obscure NGO with no history of political activism, has played such an outsized role in ousting the government of a country of 30 million people and installing its new ruler within mere days, should give us pause.

While the organization’s activities appear benevolent, its rollcall of “brands that support us” contains some puzzling entries, if not outright concerning.

Report: $900 million US funding in Nepal signals regime change plothttps://t.co/440nApk83Y

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) September 14, 2025

Anonymous profiles
It is unclear what forms of “support” Hami Nepal has received from its sponsors, or when it was provided, but they run quite the gamut. For one, the list includes luxury Western hotels in Kathmandu, clothing and shoe brands, local conglomerate Shanker – the country’s biggest private investor – messaging app Viber, and Coca Cola, notorious for its complicity in countless human rights abuses in the Global South. Elsewhere, the Gurkha Welfare Trust appears.

The Gurkhas have for centuries served as an elite, unique force within the British Army, often tasked with sensitive missions. The Trust, which provides financial aid to Gurkha veterans, their widows and families, is financed by the British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.

Meanwhile, Students for a Free Tibet is also listed. The NGO receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, an avowed CIA front. In a striking coincidence, NED is deeply concerned about the precise issue that triggered Nepal’s recent protests.

In August 2023, Nepal’s government signed off on a National Cyber Security Policy, imitating China’s “Great Firewall”, which limits foreign internet traffic into the country, while allowing for the proliferation of homegrown ecommerce platforms, social networks, and other online resources. The move was harshly condemned by Digital Rights Nepal, which is bankrolled by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations – a repeat sponsor of government overthrows. Digital Rights Nepal claimed the Policy would lead to mass censorship and threaten citizens’ privacy.

Fast forward to February, and NED published a report warning “countries worldwide,” including Cambodia, Nepal and Pakistan, were looking to China’s internet sovereignty as a “potential model” to emulate.

Rather than acknowledge the threat to Washington’s waning global web dominance posed by such ambitions, the Endowment asserted the real risk was Beijing’s “prestige” being enhanced internationally, thus helping “make the world safe” for the Chinese Communist Party. That month, Nepalese lawmakers began voting on a bill supporting the National Cyber Security Policy.

The legislation required foreign social media networks and messaging apps to formally register with Kathmandu’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

This was intended to not only make these platforms more legally accountable but also ensure the government could collect taxes on revenues they generated locally.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement imploring parliamentarians to reject the bill, on the basis that it posed a grave threat to press freedom, due to potential content restriction and banning of “creation or use of anonymous profiles.”

The CPJ is bankrolled by Open Society Foundations, a welter of leading Western news outlets, US corporate and financial giants, and Google and Meta, both of which would be adversely affected by the legislation.

The law nonetheless passed, imposing a deadline of September 3rd for registration. While TikTok and Viber complied, US platforms – including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and YouTube – refused, prompting Kathmandu to ban usage of 26 foreign-owned sites. This was the spark that ultimately toppled Nepal’s government.

Apocalyptic scenes unfold amid the ongoing "Gen Z" protests in Nepal as protestors have set everything ablaze.

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— PressTV Extra (@PresstvExtra) September 13, 2025

Secure environment
On September 4, the Federation of Nepali Journalists published a statement signed by 22 civil society organizations, expressing “strong objection” to the mass shutdown.

FNJ is funded by NED and the Open Society Foundations. Most of its co-signatories receive money from the same sources, and other Western foundations, governments, and social media platforms. For Hami Nepal, the ban was a “tipping point”, scheduling a mass rally for four days later.

The NGO extensively prepared participants in advance, even establishing a “protest support helpline”.

The September 8 protests quickly turned violent. “Gen Z” leaders distanced themselves from the destruction, claiming their peaceful action had been “hijacked” by “opportunists”.

Yet, Hami Nepal’s Discord server had bristled with belligerent messages in the preceding days. Some users openly advocated killing politicians and their children. Others posted requests for weapons, including machine guns, and openly announced their intention to “burn everything”.

Nepali Communist Party Chief Says Will ‘Rise Again’ After Losing Power

So it was Nepal’s parliament that got set ablaze and the Prime Minister’s official residence torched, prompting ministers to flee in helicopters.

The next night, in the wake of K. P. Sharma Oli’s resignation, Nepalese military chiefs met with protesters to discuss the shape of the country’s future government.

As The New York Times reported on September 11, chief “Gen Z” agitators told army officials they wanted Sushila Karki as interim leader – days before this was apparently confirmed by a competitive Discord vote. Kathmandu’s powerful, popular military has pledged to “create a secure environment until the election is held,” effectively signing off on the violent coup.

It may be significant that one of Hami Nepal’s donors isn’t publicised on its website – arms dealer Deepak Bhatta. He has an extensive history of procuring weapons for Nepal’s military and security forces, and allegations of corruption have swirled around many of these deals.

For example, in July 2022, he was accused of sourcing small arms for local police from an Italian company at four times the actual unit price. Bhatta’s long-running relationship with the army could well have facilitated its friendly contact with protest leaders.

Yugoslavia’s CIA, NED and USAID-orchestrated “Bulldozer Revolution” in 2000 was the world’s first “color revolution”. Over subsequent decades, the US has ousted governments the world over using strategies and tactics identical to those that successfully dislodged Slobodan Milosevic from office.

In almost all cases, youth groups have been key “regime change” foot soldiers. In Belgrade, after almost a decade of lethally destructive sanctions, capped off with a criminal 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign, many residents of the country had legitimate grievances and wished to see Milosevic fall.

Grieving families of protesters seek justice, hundreds seek to leave Nepal https://t.co/LXARliT7P9

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) September 12, 2025

Nonetheless, the aftermath was a blunt-force lesson in the importance of being careful about what one wishes for. Milosevic’s downfall is dubbed the Bulldozer Revolution due to iconic scenes during the much-publicised unrest of a wheel loader helping anti-government agitators occupy state buildings, and shield activists from police gunfire. Its driver quickly turned against the “Revolution”.

Subsequent Western-imposed privatization decimated Yugoslavia’s economy, causing his successful independent business to fail, and him to go bankrupt. He subsisted until his dying day on meager state welfare payments.

Herein lies the rub. There’s little doubt that many Nepalese citizens were justifiably disillusioned with their government and sought change. Yet, colour revolutions invariably exploit grassroots public discontent to install governments considerably worse than those that preceded them.

In this context, the military, including disgraced local businessman Durga Prasai, who supports the restoration of Kathmandu’s monarchy, in transition talks with “Gen Z” activists, is rendered deeply suspect. That he has been falsely promoted by the BBC as the protesters’ leader is all the more ominous.

Even enthusiastic local supporters of Nepal’s “revolution” acknowledge it is uncertain whether Sushila Karki will be able to convene elections in six months.

In any event, all established political parties were in the firing line of demonstrators, leaving the question of who will contest any future vote likewise an open one.

There is quite a political vacuum in Kathmandu presently, and history shows us NED, Open Society Foundations, and intelligence-connected Western foundations are ever-poised to seize such “windows of opportunity”. Watch this space.

And what is particularly revealing is a fact, as reported in sections of Indian media, that a plan was in the works for years to bring about a “regime change” in Nepal, engineered by the US.

Internal USAID communications reviewed by The Sunday Guardian, together with program outputs released by US democracy organizations, show that since 2020, the US has committed over $900 million in assistance to Nepal. A significant portion of this funding has been directed toward programs administered through the Washington-based consortium CEPPS, which comprises the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

As the report states, $900 million represents one of the largest per-capita US democracy investments in the region, and the goal was to have a government that serves the US interests.

 

(PressTV)