In depth Analysis

Party weaknesses inhibit political direction

Kathmandu: If the aftermath of the Indian Airlines hijacking continues to dominate Nepal-India -Pakistan relations, this deflects attention from the more serious domestic developments, which have largely long-term organizational repercussions. The hijack clearly has been used by India to impress upon the word that Nepal is vulnerable security wise in the Indo-Pak competition. If India continues to project Pakistan as a terrorist state, Nepal figures in the attempt as a via media. It is clear that attempts are being made to have say in Nepali security. Developments so far unfortunately indicate that Nepali officialdom is hesitant to match this propaganda with effective elan.

The problem clearly lies in Nepal's open borders which is a hangover of the "sub-continental" phase that the 1950 treaty refused to upgrade on the basis of the evolution of independent sovereign states that emerged in South Asia after that period. Unfortunately enough the "democratic era" that sprang up after 1950 even did away with the traditional controls on travel that existed uptil the Rana days. Longstanding demands on the scrapping of the 1950 treaty in Nepal have been rejected in India. Indeed, it is on the basis of the 1950 treaty that India would want say in Nepali Security. It is this contradiction that is most glaring and the hijack incident has underscored this.

It is equally revealing that the non-government political parties have been hesitant to both criticize the feeble HMG response to these developments as also to counter these developments with their own response. This is indicative of the weaknesses of established Nepali political institution vis-à-vis. India as also of their continuing engrossment with in party affairs.

These organizational developments in the past week have not been altogether insignificant. For Example, there is no indication as yet that the Koirala-Bhattarai tiff is over in the Congress. Continued jockeying between the two has had its effects on the emergence of a coherent national policies in pressing matters of national developments as even Congress portfolio holders continue to claim.

The ML-UML talks, it is said, continue. ML stalwart Devi Ojha's suspension is said to be a by-product of these developments as also a long-winded statement from the ML party stating its expansion priorities. Word also has it that UML-KP Bhattarai proximity is as much an attention in these talks as it is detraction. C.P. Mainali, for one, is said to be a reluctant factor in the UML-ML talks and the projection of a 'nationalist" front is said to be also under consideration.

Last week, saw the "third option" which claims the "nationalist option" also under controversy. The RPP-Chand, which was said to have recombined with the RPP-Thapa apparently, has dumped Chand and wants to go another way ignoring those who have rejoined Thapa. After considerable vacillation those opposing the merger have come out with a statement that the two parties have not merged but that some members of the Chand party including L.B Chand have entered the Thapa camp and those who have not entered it will run the Chand party. Significantly, both Rajeshwor Devkota and Chanda Shah who were elected to the Upper House from the Chand party remain aloof from the L.B Chand entry. It is these developments that are likely to have repercussions on national politics in the imminent future.

Strip news
Scholars, donors and technocrats discuss aspects of good governance

Kathmandu: Nepali scholars, former and present technocrats in the governments' machinery plus some influential international donors converged last week at a program organized by the Center for Development and discussed the role of the state, civil society, donors, NGOs and INGOs in enhancing the governance in the country so that the people at the grass-roots benefit.

While the former technocrats of the erstwhile Panchayat regime left no stone unturned in deriding at the present style of functioning of the state vis-à-vis governance, the incumbent ones wished to defend the governments' programs and policies aimed at achieving good governance.

From the old stock of the technocrats, Dr. Hark Gurung and Dr. Mohan Man Sainju took the lead in attacking the government.

"The Nepalese people have experienced political freedom since the Jana Andolan of 1990 but are still shackled in poverty", said Dr. Gurung hinting that tall claims apart from the men manning the system, the people falling below the poverty line was on the constant increase in spite of the change in the system in 1990.  Dr. Gurung however named a few maladies that have gripped Nepal of late. They were, according to Dr. Gurung, lack of accountability; misuse of power; over politicization of the state bureaucracy; over centralization and rampant corruption.

Passing on a subtle hint to the rulers of the nation, Dr. Gurung bluntly said that "people's patience never remain for ever or say eternal"'. This implied that if the establishment did not deliver goods to the people, they might go to any extent and length without even caring the system.

Likewise, Dr. Sainju, former Ambassador to the USA during Panchayat regime, even rejected the need and the advice of the donor community in practicing good governance. "We need no instructions from the powerful donors on how to practice good-governance in Nepal. Bhishma Pitamaha, a legendary figure described in the Mahabharata-the legendary epic of the Hindus, has said that "a pregnant women must take the food not of her choice but a food that is good for the baby inside the womb. The state, therefore, must devise ways and means that benefit the masses not that those benefit politicians".

"Effective policies even go to the dogs if it were not implemented effectively and efficiently. All that we need is sincerity and honesty ", concluded Sainju.

NPC member Shanker Sharma not very surprisingly pleaded for obvious reasons the attending participants to change their negative thinking and the attitudes towards the lawmakers and the nations' politicians. He however, stressed the need to remove the innumerable lacunae that have been marring the effective implementation of good governance in the country.

Richard Vokes, the Chief of the ADB, Nepal office, opined that the distinction between the economic and political dimensions of governance is rather artificial and that issues surrounding development management were usually bound up with political issues and this was clearly also true in the area of civic governance, for example, in the way in which governments and civil society interact. ( see third page for Dr. Vokes remarks).

Dr. Henning Karcher, the Resident coordinator of the UNDP, Nepal office, maintained that identifying problems and sticking with them until a solution is found represent certainly an important element of any successful system of governance and that the media and other non-state actors have an important role to play in this context and I am happy to see with us here many representatives of the media and of civil society.

Dr. Karcher for the first time perhaps mentioned the role of the media in enhancing good governance in Nepal. He also offered the UNDPs definition of governance as " comprising of mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences". (See next issue for Karcher's full text).

Chief guest Dr. Ram Saran Mahat, Nepal's foreign minister who launched earlier Dr. Bishwa Keshar Maskey's book on Development Governance: Agenda for Action, said from the chair that concept of good governance was not at all a new concept for Nepal. "Mechanisms are here. The implementation part in Nepal is in a mess", added the minister.

Welcoming the guests, Dr. Maskey said that the concept of development governance is concerned with the proper management of development process that involved the state, the public and private sector including the civil society. "It entails the building of capabilities of public sector as well as the rules and institutions that set the framework for proper conduct of public and private business", Prof. Maskey concluded.

MISCALLENEOUS
Shrestha donates fifty thousand For ASCOL hostel

Kathmandu: Under the active initiation of Mr. Narayan Shrestha, a former student of the Amrit Science Campus currently stationed in Colorado, Boulder, USA, a 13 member committee has been formed to take care after the problems being faced by the students residing at the Ascol hostel.

Mr. Shrestha as a student at the Amrit Science campus decades and decades back used to stay at the same hostel whose pitiable conditions at the moment appears to have touched his hearts and thus decided to be of some help for the betterment of the existing conditions of the hostel.

The newly constituted Ascol Alumnai include among others as Pradip man Shrestha, Pranti Sherchan, B.B.Thapa, Dharnidhar Khatiwada, Dr. D.B.Nepali, Kamal Thapa, C.P.Mainali, Tara Baral, S.N.Rajbhandari and Nirmal Shrestha.

The former graduates from this Science campus met last week and vowed to contribute their mite in bringing about a change in the existing facilities at the hostel.

Mr. Shrestha is a green card holder of United States of America.

He has already donated more than a lakh of Nepali rupees in the name of the hostel. Last week again, Shrestha donated yet another fifty thousand rupees for the same cause. The other members of the Alumnai have also assured of monetary contributions.

Telegraph editor in FNJs Foreign relations committee

Kathmandu : The newly elected president of the Federation of the Nepalese Journalists' , Suresh Acharya, has nominated the chief editor of the Telegraph weekly, N.P.Upadhyaya, as one of the members of FNJs foreign relations committee.

Most of the prominent English language journalists from the Kathmandu valley have been included in this committee.

The first meeting of the foreign relations committee held at the FNJ office on Sunday also decided to form three different sub-committees so that various programs could be accomplished under the umbrella of the FNJ.

A sub committee under the convenorship of N. P. Upadhyaya has been delegated powers to initiate talks with international agencies, donors and foreign friendly diplomatic missions.

The aim is to enhance cordial relations with the foreign missions based in Kathmandu. Others those who are in this sub-committee are Murari Upadhyaya, editor of the Himalaya Times and Puspa Raj Pradhan, the chief editor of the People's Review weekly.

Box-news
Koirala steps up criticisms; KP acquires defensive posture

Kathmandu : Clearly, President Girija Prasad Koirala has stepped up his criticisms aimed against Bhattarai led government in the recent days.

This time the congress stalwart has taken a somewhat different route to warn the government and has subtly hinted the establishment to control the rampant corruption or else the system might collapse.

Recent lectures and speeches of party president Koirala amply hint that his moves for the ouster of Prime minister Bhattarai had not come to a halt and that he can go to any extent in maligning the prestige and the very popularity of his own party government.

A clever Bhattarai, in the meantime, has devised defensive measures to counter the possible Koirala threat to his prestigious chair.

A host of committees have been formed under the Prime ministers' initiative that expectedly will record the causes and the possible remedies for the redressal of those maladies currently being faced by the population. This includes a committee that has been formed by the government to initiate dialogues with the Maoists' after consultations with prominent political parties of the nation. The committee is headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba-a bete noir of President Koirala.

A pretty annoyed Koirala recorded his displeasure at the government recent instance of releasing a hard core Maoist through the utterances of his brother Sushil Koirala who bluntly said that the act of the release was a Himalayan blunder.

Sources close to Bhattarai say that basically what annoys Koirala is that he wished to bring the Maoists' to the negotiating table under his initiations, but things have now gone in the hands of Sher Bahadur Deuba.

In the meantime, the Deuba committee for the Maoists' has begun activities aimed at bringing the insurgents to talks.

Sources close to government say that the fresh release of Dev Gurung , a hard core Maoist, is a gesture towards the insurgents so that they get tempted for talks with the Deuba committee.

Yet another source says that the link in between the Deuba committee and the Maoist is one Professor Shah. Unconfirmed reports have it that Mr. Shah is supposedly very close to Maoists stalwart Dr.Babu Ram Bhattarai. However, the full name of this Professor is yet to be ascertained.

Talking to a local vernacular weekly, Sher Bahadur Deuba has hinted that the questions asked by King Birendra to the government regarding the issue of the Maoists and the establishments' actions in containing their threats, would also be studied in details.

Analyzing these new developments, what could be said is that the government led by Bhattarai appears to be in a determined mood to utilize the precious available moments to the hilt so that President Koirala gets no chance to attack Baluatar or Singh Durbar under one pretext or the other as the latter has been doing of late.

 Hijacking yet an enigma; fake IC scandal

 Kathmandu : A series of sad events that happened within a fortnight or so have , needless to say, damaged the otherwise peace loving status of Nepal. Needless to say, these events also caused strains in the traditional Nepal-India bilateral ties.

Undoubtedly, the colossal damage that has already been caused to the country could have been controlled to a greater extent had the Nepalese authorities been honest and vigilant in their jobs, more specifically speaking at the Tribhuvan International Airport which allegedly caused the Indian Airliner IC 814 to be hijacked.

While the probe commission constituted in Nepal to determine the exact causes that caused the airliner to be hijacked is yet to come into the open, the Indian media continues unabated to project Nepal as the safe haven for elements inimical to her national security interests. The Zee channel has begun a crusade, it appears.

An international airport that remained open for the smugglers for several months in the past could not be easily absolved of laxity, frankly speaking.

However, the Indian theory that all the blames for the IC 814-hijack drama have got to be shouldered by the Nepalese side is hard to digest. The primary fault lies with the Airlines officials in Kathmandu who issued four boarding passes to one S.Quazi contra to the prevalent rules.

Secondly, it has yet to be ascertained that at which point the hijackers got themselves equipped with the firearms and pistols.

Thirdly, when the commission is yet to submit the facts, why the Indian media is forcefully projecting Nepal as the worst place in the world security wise. After all, there have been several instances that Indian airliners have been hijacked right from their own soil.

Fourthly, when the Prime ministers of Nepal and India have talked about this sad happening and are about to sort it out within a month or so, why a section of the Indian press is maligning Nepal from all possible angles. This is simply surprising. Care should be taken so that the strained bilateral ties comes on original track.

The fresh IC fake currency scandal and the involvement of a Pakistani diplomat in the affair and the subsequent declaration of the said diplomat, as persona non grata by host government is commendable. The Nepal government did a good job by sending the diplomat back home.

However, much remains to come into the open. Rumors have it that many high placed Nepali authorities could be implicated in this fake currency scandal if the probe goes to the bottom.

This notwithstanding, the government is tight lipped. Transparency demands full story of the fake currency case.

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