Leaks: NepalтАЩs new leaders were groomed by an NED/CIA cutout. Then came the landslide.
@KitKlarenberg and @wyattreed13 reviewed leaked CEPPS files. Eight months before the August 26 surge that buried the Trishuli valley and left over 1,000 dead, Balen Shah and Rabi Lamichhane unveiled a seven-point plan: end тАЬcorruption and poor governance,тАЭ deliver тАЬgood governance, prosperity, and social justice.тАЭ Shah would be prime minister. RSP would govern with him.
Less than a year later the same government is accused of rejecting or delaying foreign rescue help, mismanaging the operation, demanding donations through accounts they control, and treating the disaster as content. Engineers contradicted ShahтАЩs claim that тАЬno country has extensive expertiseтАЭ and тАЬthere is no technology available anywhereтАЭ to extract people from a mud-filled tunnel. Home Minister Sudan Gurung was on site as a rescuer instead of running the state response тАФ and posted a call for donations to his own NGO, Hami Nepal, while the government told the public to use only the official fund. MP Sagar Dhakal was among those accused of тАЬdisaster tourismтАЭ by helicopter.
Lamichhane did not start talking to local leaders in the affected areas until day four.
The leaks explain how they got there.
CEPPS тАФ Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening тАФ is an offshoot of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Reagan-era cutout that funds opposition work the CIA used to run in the shadows.
From 2017 to 2022 the US put $20 million through IRI, IFES and NDI into тАЬNiti SambadтАЭ in Nepal. A 2019 CEPPS work plan listed expanding youth leadership, challenging тАЬhierarchicalтАЭ politics, and supporting named тАЬcatalytic civic leaders.тАЭ
Those names include todayтАЩs prime minister Shah, RSP chairman Lamichhane,
Home Minister Gurung, and MP Dhakal.
IRI was already training Nepalis on тАЬhow young leaders can drive political change through protest.тАЭ The September 2025 unrest that toppled K.P. Sharma Oli was sold as organic Gen Z rage.
Buildings burned, cameras were disabled, accelerants used. An interim leader was chosen by a Discord poll with fewer than 10,000 votes.
Hami Nepal, founded by Gurung, was central to the street operation. Shah, then Kathmandu mayor, posted solidarity as the city burned; critics say firetrucks under his authority were slow to federal buildings that later burned, while municipal buildings under him were not damaged. After the coup he joined RSP and became PM. Gurung joined RSP in January and became Home Minister.
CEPPS also targeted women, Dalits, Janajatis, Muslims, Madheshis and disabled Nepalis as тАЬagents of change,тАЭ ran polls to map тАЬbehaviors and thought processes,тАЭ and trained selected youth on social media, PR and public speaking so they would sound local while reading from a Washington-funded script. Ranju Darshana, named in the files as a womenтАЩs-rights activist to support, is now an RSP MP.
A commission on the 2025 violence has not pursued the new leadership. Oli was arrested. Shah, Gurung and Lamichhane were not. Lamichhane had already been jailed in 2025 over fraud and citizenship issues; a mob freed him during the protests.
Western coverage then tried to pin the landslide on China for тАЬwithholdingтАЭ warnings. Reuters published documents showing Beijing had told Nepal 12 days earlier that enhanced rainfall could trigger landslides and flash floods. The collapse began on NepalтАЩs Langtang range.
This is the article: not a mystery about weather, but a paper trail from NED youth programs to cabinet seats to a government that cannot, or will not, run a rescue.
https://t.co/11sPYqCeyV