Koirala's 100 Days
Talks With Maoists Close At Hand

By Our Correspondent

The Nepali Congress government headed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has completed its honeymoon period of 100 days. As is customary, it is the time to see what the government has achieved, or rather what it has not achieved during this brief period.

Although it is very difficult for any government to show a considerable performance within this short time, none has been kind to any previous governments either. Everyone is, of course, talking about whether the Koirala government has achieved anything in bringing law and order in the different districts of the country where a Maoist insurgency has claimed the lives of over 1300 in the past four years.

Former NC Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai was shown the door after 10 months in office on the very ground that he failed to bring peace to the region and revitalise the economy.

The Maoist problem is no way better than it was three months back when Koirala took office. And the economy, as even the government will admit, is not in good shape. But the Koirala government has many things to be proud of.

For one, talks between the Maoists and the government are close at hand. Prime Minister Koirala has given full authority to former Premier Sher Bahadur Deuba, coordinator of a High Level Recommendation Committee to resolve the Maoist problem, to hold a dialogue with the Maoist leaders. And as Deuba told the press prior to his departure for New York on Friday, the Maoist general secretary Prachanda has forwarded a letter for the talks.

Koirala’s government also has won kudos for trying to introduce good governance and an efficient administration in the country. He seems equally firm in dealing with corruption. The recent budget that saw an increment in the salaries of civil servants is expected to be instrumental in this regard.

The government is committed to mobilise greater resources for the country’s development through implementation of a stricter tax regime. It is because of this commitment that in the Paris meet, donor agencies promised to extend maximum support to Nepal - a big accomplishment of the government.

As a step to cut down the administration expenses, the government has also cut down the number of ministries to 21 from 26. Another important achievement of the government is the formation of the much awaited Human Rights Commission. The commission had failed to realise even after 10 years of democracy.

The government, of course, has a long way to go in solving the country’s major ills. What is important is not only consensus among the different political parties in this endeavor, but also consensus among leaders within the ruling Nepali Congress party. A show of unity is important especially in the wake of the national convention of the party that will elect the party leadership.

National Debate On Security Issues Demanded

By Our Correspondent

The ruling Nepali Congress Party last week directed the government to formulate a national security policy. The Sunday Despatch talked with two eminent personalities - Sridhar Khatri and Yadav Kant Silwal - on the issue. Khatri is a professor of Political Science at Tribhuvan University, while Silwal was the former Foreign Secretary and SAARC Secretary General.

Security policy must go beyond rhetoric: Khatri

Recently the ruling Nepali Congress party gave directives to the government to formulate a national security policy. Why do you think the party thought it necessary to have such a policy now?

I think with the Maoist problem growing, there is a tendency to think that the country needs a security policy. But I think we are not looking at the overall security needs of the country as such, but looking at the issue in a fragmented way.

After 1990 the security issue has not been taken up seriously as it should have been. For example, in terms of our overall standing in the region and in terms of our security policy vis-a-via our neighbours plus our own internal security matters. Conceptually there is very little thought given to these. But security is not an isolated issue. It has to be looked both externally as well as internally. And also security in the post Cold War era has taken a different dimension altogether. At the global level even environment has become a matter of security concern. If you look at India’s own security policy and its approaches towards its neighbours, new issues have come about. But in Nepal, we just do not examine issues in a comprehensive way. I think, the Nepali Congress like any other party, is giving some attention, but still not to the degree that is required.

The fact that after 10 years the government is being directed by the party to form a national security policy means that for 10 years we have been sleeping.

Security policy is the essence behind the survival of a nation state, and to protect the national interest, it is a priority. This belated recognition is a reflection of our slow thinking in this area, and this is something that needs to be remedied very soon. But I hope it will go beyond rhetoric, and will get a immediate recognition. Because we are very good at coming out with slogans, but in terms of implementation we are very,very slow.

The directive has come in the aftermath of the highly controversial report in India Today. Do you think it is a coincidence?

I am afraid when political parties and responsible leaders start talking about security issues as the need for action, then we, as a country, are at fault. Since the beginning of history, with the creation of nation states, security has been an important matter for each country. Why just talk about the India Today report?

Why not talk about, for example, the Indian Airlines hijacking? What we need to do is examine in a holistic fashion. That is where we have made a mistake.

I think it would be a mistake to look only at the Maoist problem as a security issue by forgetting the overall external and the multi-dimensional issues related to security. Tragically, the Maoist problem is becoming a security issue, but it is also becoming a political issue convenient to political leaders. That is very dangerous.

The other thing I fear is that we have no real mechanism to deal with the overall national security. I fear after the Maoist problem is tackled in one way or the other, we might forget about other security matters. This is a problem with the fragmented approach that depends on the need for action.

The other political parties have not said anything publicly about the directives. If the other parties do not accept the NC’s line of thinking, then what will become of the policy?

Each government has the responsibility to formulate its policy. The next step is to try and get some form of national consensus. A government’s policy will not generate consensus automatically. That is where astute political leaders need to work towards developing a coordinated approach on security issues. A small country like Nepal cannot afford to have a divided approach on security matters. It is good that the Nepali Congress is taking the issue foreward, but it should not formulate it as a political tool.

This has to go beyond the rhetoric to a level of a national policy where political leaders and parties are willing to commit themselves and take a solid stand, and see it as a follow through measure for the future. However, the problem I see in the current environment is that it is becoming more of a convenient tool. That is not good.

What should be the guidelines and the basics of our security policy?

The first thing is to recognize the need for a solid policy approach on how and what they want to have in the policy. That is essentially of a conceptual nature. The second is, working out a clearly-defined mechanism to coordinate the overall policy.

You can not have the police, army, the Home Ministry and the others going their own ways. It does not matter whether you create a National Security Council that is solely responsible or a security council within the prime minister’s office, but the mechanism needs to be defined.

Lastly, it may be convenient for political parties to initially have their own approaches, but ultimately, they have to synthesize them into a national approach. Security in the traditional sense means protecting your borders, but these days it is not confined to that alone. There should a serious debate on what that new approach is going to be, and it has to be developed very fast.

National security means to have a proactive foreign policy: Silwal

Recently the ruling Nepali Congress party gave directives to the government to formulate a national security policy. Why do you think the party thought it necessary to have a national security policy now?

Before you talk of formulating a security policy you have to have some kind of threat perception and be very clear about what that threat perception is. I don’t know whether they are very clear about it. There are two kind of threats - external and internal. The external threat means you are not in good terms with your neighbours and that you have certain apprehensions about the designs of your neighbours. Another is internal which originates from different phenomena like terrorism, fundamentalism, drug trafficking, movement of small firearms linked up with some kind of insurgency problem. So, we have got to be clear and only then you have to devise a security policy.

If you ask me how do you go about it, first and foremost, I’d say you should strengthen your army, not because I want our army to fight, but because in any security policy there must be a component to strengthen the security. We can use the army in the international arena that we have been doing for so long. Or, if the worse comes to worse even to defend our territory and sovereignty. To talk of internal security matters, security is not necessarily related to defence matters only. You have to have food security, social security and others. It is high time, and a very crucial one, that we focus on topics of social security also. The lack of it is one of the reasons why we have the insurgency problem. As I look at the Maoist problem I link it essentially with the socio-economic phenomenon. I do not equate it with other security issues.

You just talked about external security, has the security perception of South Asia changed?

Yes, it has. Mainly after the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan. That gave a totally new dimension to the security paradigm of the region. It has had its repercussions in bilateral relations among the countries of South Asia. It has also created a higher degree of concern among the big powers. In the last several years, what I am witnessing is that there has been a shift in the perception of some of the countries of South Asia on matters of security. For example, India has already declared security guideliness of maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrant capability, no first use and no use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. But given the historical legacy of conflict in South Asia, these kind of phenomena like nuclear testing and very uneasy relations among neighbours in South Asia, pose problems, sometimes formidable ones. So, it is the leaderships of South Asia which have to come face-to-face with these kinds of problems. When we talk of security in Nepal the best thing would be, I believe, to reactivcate the process of SAARC, which can take care of the security concerns of not only Nepal, but also of the whole subcontinent. It is unfortunate that this regional cooperation which can take care of security concerns in terms of various conventions, like convention of terrorism, convention on drug trafficking has received a set back.

The directive has come in the aftermath of the highly controversial report in the India Today. Do you think it is a coincidence?

The India Today report which was put in the Internet was very unfortunate. What I don’t understand is why and how the government of India let this happen. A report of an intelligence agency, which should be confidential and classified but it has come out in the Internet! I also cannot understand the explanation given by the Indian national security adviser. This is a report which has been deliberately made public against a friendly country like Nepal. But in the interest of whom? Whatever has been said in the report is not exclusively new to Nepal. These phenomena are prevalent worldwide after the end of the Cold War. There have been a rise in fundamentalism, ethnic clashes and others in other parts as well. But to single out Nepal and say exclusively that Nepal is to be blamed is something I can’t understand. At the same time what I have taken note is that this Nepal Game Plan thing is not something new. It is a part of a series of differences that have cropped up in Nepal-India relations in the last four or five years regarding Kalapani, the controversial Mahakali Treaty, border problems and others. Of course, India has been saying about the so-called ISI activities in Nepal in the last several years, then came the hijacking and now this report. Until and unless Nepal and India take up the issue in earnest at the highest possible level, things are not going to improve. Rather it will have a very harmful impact on Nepal-India relations.

The other political parties have not said anything publicly about the directives.

There has to be an extensive national debate on how Nepal will tackle the security related issues where the whole contours of national policy are defined, analysed and dealt with. For example do the Maoists pose a security problem? When you talk of security, you are essentially talking of future eventualities. God forbid it such a situation arises. But the government needs to be prepared to deal with any such eventualities. So, it is not bad to talk about a national security policy. But there has to be an extensive national debate and secondly, you have got to be very very clear about the limits of national security and deal with it in a high degree of seriousness.

What should be the guidelines and the basics of our national security policy?

Internally, as I told you, we have to see that we have a strong army, not to fight against the insurgency but mainly for the international arena. Secondly, national security means we have to have a proactive foreign policy, a regular system of dialogue with big powers and also with neighbouring countries, mainly India and China. Being at the receiving end, it is us who have to take initiatives for this on a regular basis. Thirdly, you have to deal with other socio-economic issues, such as poverty because these are the things that will ultimately affect a country’s security. So, the government has to be very serious and very honest about it. There should also be long-term programmes and strategy about it.

Youths Duped By HK Shipping Company

By K. P. Sharma

Here is yet another story of youths seeking employment abroad being duped and stripped of their money. In the latest case, this has happened with nearly 2,000 Nepalese labourers wanting to work in a shipping company based in Hong Kong.

After successfully going through the interviews and a thorough health check-up with a labour contracting company, it was natural that their dreams should soar high. But their dreams were never to come true.

Atlantic Pacific Merchant (APM), a Hong Kong shipping agent, has shattered the dreams of thousands by pulling out after all the trouble the youths have gone through.

As per the agreement with APM, two Kathmandu-based agencies - Milan International Manpower Pvt. Ltd. (MIM) and Annapurna Manpower Services (AMS) - had sought youths through advertisements in the papers.

Thousands of unemployed youths flooded the manpower companies supplying firms. They spent Rs. 2,000 each on so-called medical check-ups and many more thousands on lodging and fooding while waiting for their visas. Some say they had even bribed the companies to be short listed.

It now looks as if they have been duped as one Sazzad Akbar, the contractor who the MIM and AMS say had gone to Hong Kong to bring their visas, has failed to return even after six months.

Meanwhile, Mukti Bahadur Gurung, Managing Director of MIM, says he is in constant contact with Sazzad, but is not sure if he will return with the visas. “I have, thus, returned the passports and other documents to those who can’t wait any longer.”

According to him, more than half the applicants have withdrawn their documents.

“I not only lost my money on the medical check-up and others, but proved myself a perfect fool by believing these manpower services which are established only to cheat people,” Prem Chandra, who had also applied for the employment in the shipping company through MIM, told this weekly.

Another Hira Bahadur Sherchan says these two companies made nearly four million rupees in the name of health check-ups from the nearly 2,000 applicants.

But Kumar Joshi, economist at the Ministry of Labour, says that they can get their money back if they lodge a formal complaint against the manpower companies, and after the investigation proves that they were cheated.

“But we will lose more money if we start lodging complaints against them and wait for the investigation results, “ says Saroj Lama (name changed for privacy). Lama’s documents are still there with the Manpower companies and he still hopes that they would help him find some works abroad. MD Gurung, meanwhile, has a different story to tell. He says that the APM is an officially registered company and that the person who represents the company is also a registered contractor. Moreover, the Ministry of Labour had approved of it.

“It is Sazzad Akbar, a Pakistani national, who has been deceiving us,” he says. “He has said that he would bring visas by Saturday.

If the visas do not arrive by this week (July 15), I will file a case against him in the Interpol”. Whether this will help to find employment for the 2,000 youths will be another story.

Foreign employment has become one of the major employer and also an important forex earners for the country. Several hundred thousand Nepalese are presently working in different regions mainly in the Middle East, East Asia.

Girl Tops SLC

By Our Correspondent

The Office of the Controller of Examinations on Saturday published the results of the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations of the academic year 2056.

Securing 647 marks (92.43%) Sumnima Singh of Siddhartha Vanasthali School, Kathmandu has topped this year’s SLC exams. Likewise, Jeewan Poudel and Manoj Bohara have shared the top slots among the boys securing 643 marks each out of 700.

With the announcement of only the toppers among the boys and the girls, the Controller’s office has shifted from the tradition of announcing the top ten position holders in the SLC examinations.

“This decision has been taken to ensure healthy competition among the schools and to discourage the tendency of exam-oriented teaching in the schools,” Controller of the Examinations Board Sahadev Bhatta said.

Of the 205,541 students who sat for the SLC exams held in mid-April, 19,836 examinees have been placed in first division, 50,580 in second division and 23,562 in third division.

The total pass percentage for this year stands at 45.72 against the pass percentage of 49.20 last year.

Likewise, 7,331 out of 32,082 students who had failed in the previous years, have also passed the examinations. Their pass percentage stands at 22.85.

The Office of the Controller of Examinations has published the results three days ahead of its stipulated deadline of bringing out the SLC results. It had earlier planned to bring out the results within 70 days.

Sumnima Singh, 16, was happy about the results. She even said she was expecting it. She plans to take up science and also pursue literature with equal enthusiasm.

Talking to the Sunday Despatch weekly, she said her ultimate aim is to win the Nobel Prize in both science and literature. She already has three books to her credit. She has also won the best child literary award for her collection of poems called Pallavi. She says if the education system is to be improved there should be no commercialisation.

Meanwhile, Sumnima’s name has been in the papers long before the results as the would-be topper of this year’s examinations. The headmaster of her school had gone on record to say that only a plot against her would prevent her from topping the list.

The new decision by the Board could invite debates on whether the announcement of only the two top positions, among the boys and the girls, will actually improve the standard of education and the examinations.

When the CPN- UML was in power in 1995 it had abolished the practice of announcing the top ten positions for a more egalitarian merit basis. But the next government reverted back to the old system.

There are also rumours and even allegations that money was being used by schools to see that their names figure in the top 10 slots.

Meanwhile, as the present results show the private schools have done far better than the public and the government schools.

While the private and boarding schools have a very high percentage of their students securing good marks, the public and government schools have fared badly.

Also the large number of students failing in the exams is an indication that our schools are producing thousands of high school dropouts every year, many of whom face an uncertain future because of the absence of vocational training. There is, thus, an urgency to revamp the education as well as the examination systems.

Flood Affects 43 Districts

By Our Correspondent

Fifty-five people have been killed and 28 injured in the recent landslides and floods that have affected 43 districts of the country after the start of this year’s monsoon last week. Two persons are still missing.

In Tanahun district alone, 15 people were killed due to landslide. On Thursday, five persons died because of the landslide.

According to officials at the Home Ministry, 1145 families have been affected and 392 houses have been damaged by the flood and landslide. And 185 houses and 52 sheds have been affected partially. The natural disaster has also killed 251 animals.

The officials said that the flood and landslide have damaged properties worth over Rs. 27.7 billion.

The Ministry provides Rs. 10,000 to the families of each of the persons killed.

Police and army have been mobilised to rescue the victims. Many rescued families have been kept at schools and temporary sheds.

Ministry of Health and Nepal Red Cross Society have despatched doctors and medicines to the affected areas. The flood and landslide have mainly affected the hilly districts.