 |
Kathmandu Friday March 08, 2002 Falgun 24, 2058.
|
Irresponsible utterance
Nepali Congress (NC) President Girija Prasad
Koirala has earned himself over the years a reputation for being consistently inconsistent
in the statements he makes. The septuagenarian leader fires a salvo of one kind or another
with sinister regularity, and the purpose is usually none other than to vent his wrath and
pent-up frustration at seeing someone else in the chair of the chief executive.
Surprisingly, this time around, the target is somewhat new. It is the army, not the
government that has imposed the state of emergency, he says. Such an inflammatory
statement coming in the aftermath of the extension of the state of emergency and from
someone of his stature in the ruling party cannot be brushed aside. He is on record as
saying: "I know the people who mobilized the army". Picking on the army at a
time of emergency is at best gratuitous. No other political leader has pointed the finger
at the army in this way. His outrageous statement can be interpreted as having more to it
than meets the eye. It would be too unkind to attribute it to senility. Even though it
came from the mouth of Koirala, the statement is hard to swallow. It might rake up
suspicions over the credibility of the army. If he senses any hint of the army stepping
out of line, then what’s keeping him from unzipping the bag of secrets and displaying
them in public?
Koirala cannot spew the venom and leave the
scene without cleaning up the mess. Given his hold over the majority party in parliament,
the NC supremo could easily take the public into confidence. If he thinks that is too
daunting, nay, an impossible task, then he can do a favour within and outside his own
party by handing over power to the younger generation which is waiting in the wings. This
will indeed be a great sacrifice for someone whose hands are itching for the levers of
power, but opening his mouth only when it is absolutely necessary will also help. At least
it will help calm down the simmering conflict within the faction-ridden NC. Surprisingly
though, the rival camps are responding to his comments with deafening silence.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba never tires of
expressing his conviction that the army will resolve the Maoist insurgency which is
visibly spinning out of control day by day. A huge chunk of money has been squeezed out of
the depleted state coffers to bolster up security measures and give an added advantage to
the army over the insurgents. That called for overhauling the annual budget and clamping
extra taxes. Investing in defence is not productive in a strictly economic sense. But the
prospects of restoring peace and order far outweigh the economic considerations. Perhaps
this was the underlying perception when Deuba mobilised the army and opted for that
approach. While so much trust is being vested in the army, Koirala is making wild
allegations regarding that entity. Were he not satisfied with the army’s performance,
why was the state of emergency extended? That could not have been possible without his
support. Perhaps the reason was that the deal worked out with the CPN-UML for getting the
state of emergency endorsed included formation of an all party government which he hoped
to lead. Or perhaps, his new tantrum can be attributed to the warning letter he sent to
Deuba, which apparently failed to raise hackles of any magnitude. |
