COMMENT

Don’t mobilise army only

The present Nepali Congress government led by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala seems to be taking a hardline stand against the growing Maoist insurgency. There are reports that the National Security Council, headed by the PM and which has the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Nepalese Army and also the Defense Secretary as members, has already met several times since the present government took office about a fortnight back. Prime Minister Koirala himself has admitted that this Security Council has been activated to ensure a proper law and order situation in the country. That this Council, which is supposed to be the highest body that looks after the security matters of the nation, specially in times of emergency or war, has been brought to the fore, indicates the seriousness with which the present government has looked at the recent security concerns of the country. While the concern and seriousness of the government is appreciable, it must be cautioned that mobilising the security forces alone will not solve the ongoing insurgency problem. It is known that PM Koirala has made it a personal goal to resolve the Maoist problem, but he must comprehend that he may push the nation further into a violence ridden trap if he thinks only mobilising the army will help him accomplish his goal.

Yes, there is a need to tighten security in the Maoist affected areas. The police have not been able to provide security to their own lot, forget the villagers who now are at the mercy of the insurgents. But even if only a dozen or so districts are to be covered with new security measures, thousands of more men backed with proper logistics, including weapons and communication equipment will be required to be really effective. Apart from the heavy toll such a huge presence of security personnel could take on the economy and also in the social life in the covered areas, the government will also have to understand that constitutional rights of the people in such places may have to be sacrificed in the name of security. Can a democratic government afford to do that? If at all, the army is to be mobilised in the affected districts, programmes must be prepared to take economic and social development packages there as well. The local people must be won over, not coerced to abide by the Constitution of the country and not take up arms against the government. It can be hoped all such aspects will be given thought, while fulfilling the objective of maintaining the law and order situation of the country.

Remain true to words

It is a known fact that corruption is eating into the moral fibres of our society. Like they say when money talks, the truth remains silent, this evil has been blamed for majority of the woes of the country. Indeed it is, when important decisions are made not because of their merits but because it benefits the decision-makers, when development projects remain stalled because there are no kick-backs, when high level positions are bought by the highest bidders, when files move by the momentum of money and even governments fall mainly because some people do not get so and so positions and portfolios. Corruption has spread its tentacles so widely, that now this evil is being accepted as a part of life by the people. With people, especially the leaders of the political parties, getting rich overnight, corruption seemed to gain some sort of unspoken acceptance among the desperate people. A lot has been spoken about corruption and the need to eliminate it but all talks lacked concrete actions. There is finally some hope that this dangerous trend will be dealt headlong by those in power. The PM seems determined to do that. Last week he committed himself that his decisions, henceforth, with be focused on, for the benefit of the country and the people at large. The PM’s announcement that all those in power should declare their properties and any asset that is unsubstantiated by relevant source of income will be considered as illegally gained and will be confiscated. Similarly, the main opposition party, the CPN-UML has also launched campaigns against corruption. The month-long protest programmes of the UML were mainly directed against corruption and irregularities in the government and public life. The party has also taken steps to socially ostrasize those who it believes to be corrupt by announcing their names. Indeed, these are welcome steps. However, all efforts against corruption in the past have been limited to tall talkings only without any substantive action. But this time both the ruling party and the main opposition look serious and determined. It remains to be seen how strongly can they persevere and for how long will they remain unperturbed by storms that may arise to threaten or to dampen the spirits against anti-corruption. But if they remain true to their words and serious in their purposes the scourge of corruption can certainly be rooted out.

Challenge to SAARC -- Part II

The Colombo summit

The Colombo Summit incorporated the five inter-related recommendations in its summit declaration. The impact of the IGSAC report on the SAARC Heads of State and policy makes also demonstrated the value of interactions between independent scholars, and the professional and the official SAARC process. By 1995, this vision and the agenda for immediate action/follow-up implementation strategy had got diluted into a series of fragmented activities, each inching its way through the official SAARC process.

The SAPTA was signed but implementation has been slow. It has been superseded, more recently, for most part, by discussions on SAFTA and the signing of some bilateral trade agreements. Food security and payments arrangements have yet to get off the ground. The proposal for establishing an effective South Asian Development Fund has got diffused. Expert groups, inter-governmental committees and consultants and reports have diffused the IGSAC recommendation for a South Asian fund. As it stands now, it is unlikely to mobilise the global surplus for sustainable South Asian development. Despite a collapse of the South East Asian “miracle”, no one talks seriously about the need for a South Asian payments arrangement. The fiction that the Asian Clearing Union is a sufficient watchdog is maintained. In the area of poverty, however, initially there seemed to be some impetus and intellectual vigour, which could have made it an “entry point” to re-capture of the vision of sustainable development and a manageable policy.

The poverty commission’s three sector pro-poor growth model for SAARC:

As mentioned, the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation, recommended in the IGSAC Report, has been established at the Colombo summit and was a major innovation within SAARC. Its members, appointed by the SAARC Heads of State, functioned independently.

The report that emerged from this independent commission was unanimous and a major contribution to development thinking. Many of the underlying concepts, on pro-poor growth and participation of the poor have inched their way into the global discourse. It recommended a three-sector growth model, not the two-sector (public and private sector) approach in conventional development thinking; the third sector being the informal or the sector where the poor are subjects of the process. The State had a positive role to play in creating the macro-frameworking conditions to support this third sector.

The Poverty Commission Report was also a critique of mainstream development from the point of view of the poor. The conventional development interventions over the past 50 years have resulted in a growth rate too low to have an impact on the levels of living a benefit sufficiently the large number of poor. When there is no level playing field, no amount of liberalisation can increase the growth rate in the short term. Whatever growth there has been has failed to “trickle down” or be administratively redistributed to the poor, except in a limited manner. In fact even at that time there was evidence of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. This is now unambiguously confirmed in the 1999 UNDP Human Development Report. But in South Asia as part of the conventional development model, ad-hoc safety nets and fragmented poverty projects are yet being advocated for the poor. The fact that re-distributive justice alone is simply not the answer has been ignored. It cannot eradicate poverty in a given time frame, when numbers of poor are so large.

Conventional development also ignored the recommendations that eradication of poverty in South Asia would require a major political approach in which social mobilisation and empowerment of the poor play a critical role. Equally important was the recognition that the poor are efficient, can help increase savings and can contribute directly to a pattern of pro-poor growth at the base of the economy using a lower capital output ratio. In the past 10 to 15 years, a sufficient body of new experience has matured at the micro-level in the South Asian countries, which demonstrated efficiency. Where the poor participate as subjects, and not as objects of the development process, it is possible to generate a pattern of growth, human development and equity, not as mutually exclusive trade-offs, as in conventional development thinking but as complementary elements in the same process. An in-depth analysis made of the hundreds of regroups participatory processes on the ground in South Asia confirm that the poor have contributed to growth and human development, simultaneously, under varying socio-political circumstances. The worst forms of poverty have been eradicated within a given time frame of 10 years in specific geographical “space”. With sufficient macro-framework conditions and support these processes can be multiplied.

The recommendation

The recommendation of the Poverty Commission Report was for each country to prepare a pro-poor coherent macro-plan with social mobilisation to be in parallel to a cautious liberalisation strategy. An eight to nine per cent growth rate was envisaged, five to six per cent from the organised public and private sectors and two to three per cent from the organisations of the poor. This strategy would be achieved with a higher savings rate and lowering of the capital output ratio at the base.

Using the overall perspective and the premises for action in the report as the points of departure, South Asia could articulate a new vision for the poor, so that the poor are no longer part of the problem, but can contribute directly to the solution. The whole process should be monitored continuously in a participatory manner with built-in self-corrective measures.

The report helped to clarify a great deal of conceptual confusion and conflicting, narrow ideologically oriented advice both from internal and external sources being given to SAARC Governments, regarding solutions to the poverty problem. The repeated endorsement of the recommendations at the 1993 and 1995 SAARC Summits meant that the ownership of the vision and recommendations and the “how” of poverty eradication were now in the hands of the Heads of State of SAARC.

The question then to be faced at the next SAARC Summit, whenever it is held, is: why is this initial consensus regarding the coherent strategic option and the “how” of poverty eradication in a given time frame based on the lessons from the ground not being vigorously implemented? This assumes greater relevance as the alternative to vigorous poverty eradication is the specre of a multi-faceted crisis and not just political instability, but an unmanageable polity in South Asia. The fact that the next SAARC Summit has been postponed in not reason enough to delay bringing the challenge of poverty, this particular strategic option and the “how” of poverty eradication in the South Asia to the centre stage of concern.

Concluded

Nepali-Indian Talks...

If Nepal gives into India’s interest to have thier own security personel at TIA Nepal can then formally begin to say good bye to Independence and to being a Sovereign nation. No, we will then slowly become like Sikkim and Bhutan, one thing at a time and then gulp next thing we now, we will be a part of India. Nepal Pradesh or somehting like that wouldn’t be a suprise.

We will have Indian Police and Millitary telling us what to do and not to do in our own country!

Why can’t we stand on our won? Is it only politics or is it more than that?  It must be a combination, with the current Government headed by P.M.   Pro-India who bows to any Indian suggestion about how and what Nepal should do we can’t expect much from him. It’s now left to the People, the people of Nepal and what we want. We have to take it into our own hands and stand up as the government is not guarding our intresst but thier own.

The country is in a miserable state with a small civil war raging in the western part of the country and what is happening , people are dying daily  because politicians just sit in Singha Durbar and talk and pump more wealth  into thier pockets as the people are getting poorer and poorer. Who care’s about the People, was it not the People who brought Democracy to our Nation?

Have they forgotten about the very foundation of thier power? Surely seems so when no one cares about the People.

So as no one cares about the People and thier intresst, the case of Indian Security Personel at TIA has become an issue of finances, personal, how much the Nepali officials can get into thier own pockets from India. We all know that it’s all about bakshish, specially when we’re dealing with Indian’s.

The conclusion is that if Nepal agrees to Indian Security at TIA we can kiss bye bye to “Hamro Nepal” and it’s long lived Independence and Pride of being Nepalis. This due to some Government officials receiving bakshish in thier pockets for allowing India it’s will. If Nepal doesn’t agree and says “NO” to Indian Security Personel at TIA then we can at least thank that there are some leaders that have some care about the People and thier intresst. And we can as Nepali’s be proud of another battle we won against Indian Imperialism!

K. Kunwor
Kathmandu, Nepal
Via Internet

No stuff of novices

We welcome your coverage of this business. However, we would like to mention here that the Shaligram Apartment-Hotel at Jawlakhel with its 9 suites should also have got a mention. So also others left out, which information is easily available and there are not too many to begin with.

We take objection to the remark by your staff reporter ... “ But that does not detract novices from starting this business”. Kindly be informed that apartment-hotels involve huge capital investments in the range of Rs 20-45million and are hardly the stuff of novices. They are well conceived business ventures carving out a niche for themselves along the lines mentioned by the staff reporter.

Madhukar S.J.B. Rana
Via Internet