BOOK OF THE WEEK

In depth Analysis

Left threatens Girija Babu's agenda!

Kathmandu:- Predictably the Left is on the move. After nearly five years of relative inaction Monday's UML Nepal Bundh decidedly announced the Party's presence on the streets as the largest opposition party in the country. In so many ways therefore it also reveal its close proximity with the K.P Bhattarai section in the congress. For over a year as His Majesty's Loyal opposition in Parliament, the UML had mysteriously refrained from demonstrating its strength and even the inconsequential nine party alliance of the minor Left had appeared to out do it.

The UML's street program is only one of a series of Left activities on the street the most potent one anticipated is to do with the call for an "Armed Bundh", and innovations all its own accounted for the Maoist's movement.

As a prelude, the UML success may be considered relatively peaceful given that the Maoist's threatened to accompany their protest with violence. It is this program, on April 6th that must be watched only too obviously perhaps the new government of Girija Prasad Koirala will find its strength and determination to promote law and order as a priority severely tested and challenged.

Government announcements of this priority will perhaps be its most vulnerable agenda. Considering that Girija Babu's Cabinet has already triggered disgruntled outbursts in the Congress and there is now a sizable demonstrated section reluctant in granting him cooperation in the Parliament and outside, violence on the streets may find encouragement from this section itself. Kathmandu Valley for example, where Congress representation in Cabinet is lacking, will be a new testing ground for Maoist activity on the streets. As yet Maoist insurgency has had no demonstration here as a matter of Prachanda's strategy.

It is the Maoist-HMG relationship that will perhaps merit considerable attention in the coming days. Significantly, the movements Prachanda went public with the announcement that his party's nominees to talks had been declared. Immediately after Prime Minister Bhattarai was ejected from his seat Dr. Baburam Bhattarai came forth with an interview hinting that talks had been scuttled by the Girija move.

As yet despite Girija Babu's several pronouncements, one is unaware whether former Premier S.B. Deuba continues to head or remains still willing to head the official body designated to talk to the Maoists. If one recalls, KP Bhattarai put special emphasis in his outgoing speech in Parliament on the fact that special headway had been made in the talks. Babu Ram Bhattarai's interview hints at the same.

Whatever, with the UML and the minor Left already announcing agitation programs and the Maoist's movement suggesting a new phase, Girija Babu appears to have his hands full by time the winter session of the Parliament where he claims to have his tenuous majority is prorogued.

Armed Nepal Bundh, a serious challenge to Koirala government

Kathmandu: Prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala's impending days and months are undoubtedly pretty frightening.

Internal rivalries apart, Koirala's political acumen  whatever he possesses at the moment will be amply tested when he will have to face the first ever biggest challenge posed to his administration by the Maoists' sponsored "Armed Shut Down" scheduled for April 6, next month.

A sort of panic has already spread among the population with the announcement of this Armed Shut down by the Maoists'. Different heads in a different fashion are interpreting the very definition of the Armed shut down. However, intellectuals believe that the shut down of the April 6 would undoubtedly be violent which will perhaps bring the state administration's law and order authorities face to face with the Maoists' insurgents.

Preparations to that possible violent closure, according to the Maoists' and left affiliated journals, is already on. Similarly, the establishment is also gearing up its activities to counter this threat from the Maoists, say informed sources.

Nonetheless, it is surprising as to why the Maoists' have selected this date, read April 6, for their Bundh is still an enigma. To recall, this day in the year 1990 had caused the total collapse of the erstwhile Panchayat regime.

As a matter of fact, the Maoists' neither liked the former regime nor possess any sympathy for the system now in place. Yet the selection of the day when Panchayat crumbled becomes significant.

Still, the Maoists appear to have apparently accepted this day as the one, which at least offered some solace to the people from the authoritarianism of the past regime.

As per the Maoists' program, the publicity program initiated by the party that commenced from March 20 will come to an end today. From tomorrow till April 4, the Maoists will initiate the program of People's mobilization and that would soon be followed by some sort of 'special resistance actions'. The entire preliminary movement of the Maoists' will culminate on April 5 , one day prior to the Armed Bundh, in which they would exhibit their strength through the use of mass and torch demonstrations plus what they prefer to call a "sabotage program".

Various pamphlets and postures published by the Maoists say that the day April 6 is being observed in protest to the government sponsored killings of the innocent civilians, in search of the now missing Dinesh Sharma, a high ranking activists of the Maoists and to expose the state staged killing at the Khara village in the recent weeks.

The April 6 Bundh appears to be clandestinely supported by the rest of the communist's factions including the UML. For example, the Maoists affiliated journals have termed the UML sponsored closure of the March 27 as "successful". Perhaps this they might have done to appease the UML for their cause. Similarly, the April 6 bundh too has coincided with the protest programs initiated by the nine minor left parties that will only add to the problems for the government.

So much so that other minor opposition parties will also possibly join ranks with the communists' this round in their all out protest of the government at least on the counts of the price rise and the deteriorating law and the order issue that have badly affected the poor and the marginalized section of the Nepalese society.

Parties such as Sadbhavana and the RPP, for example, are supposedly close to the ruling government for obvious reasons.

All in all, Koirala will have to move in a road that is extremely difficult. How Koirala takes up the challenge will perhaps later determine the course of actions of the Maoists and the rest of the opposition and vice versa.

Pakistan ready to ease Kashmir tension; sign CTBT

Kathmandu: President Bill Clinton's freshly concluded South Asia trip appears to have worked to some extent in convincing India and Pakistan to "restore the dialogue process" which took a nose dive after last years' October 12 change in Pakistan.

The first change has been that Pakistan High Commissioner to India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said last week that Pakistan was ready to talk to India on the Kashmir issue, realizing its responsibility as a nuclear state. However, this statement has come prior to Clinton's trip to Pakistan.

The second visible change could be witnessed in the fresh interview of General Pervez Musharraf , 28 March, in which he has hinted that he was prepared to persuade Mujahideen to reduce tension in Kashmir in order to pave the way for talks with India.

However, in yet another interview with the Financial Times, the Pakistan's military leader Musharraf stressed that his country would do this only if India took action to enforce respect for human rights in the disputed territory.

The Financial Times said this was Musharraf's first offer to exercise government's influence in this way to break the deadlock over talks on Kashmir.

"They want something from our side. We will try to address this issue, try to persuade the freedom fighters to reduce tension. But there has to be reciprocity. They should never expect us to take unilateral action", concluded General Mussarraf.

In the meanwhile, the Pakistan Ambassador in Russia, Mansoor Alam, has said that his country has already declared that it would not conduct any more nuclear tests. "Pakistan is prepared to sign Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty when a consensus is arrived at on it. However, two things have reduced the importance of the issue: firstly, US Senate did not endorse the CTBT and secondly, we have to keep in view nuclear doctrine of India. Our government is in favor of signing the CTBT but it cannot ignore these two facts," Mr Alam told Radio Moscow recently in an interview. The South Asian nations in the immediate neighborhood will watch how India reacts to these Pakistani statements. It is this community that will have to face the brunt of any possible nuclear war in between the two arch rival nations, India and Pakistan.

Nepal will not allow Indian security men at TIA

- FM Bastola

Kathmandu: Indian Ambassador K.V.Rajan's fresh strong worded statement made in Pokhara last week regarding the stationing of the Indian Security personals (in disguise?) in Nepal drew considerable attention of the Nepalese intelligentsia.

Media reports had it that the Indian envoy forcefully pleaded the posting of the Indian security commandos at the Tribhuvan International Airport as per the International Civil Aviation Organizations' clearly stipulated provisions. Reports also suggested that the envoy was very critical of the Nepali reservations on the stationing of Indian security men at the TIA.

Clearly, this statement was not taken in a good taste by a section of the media and the government as well. Some even guessed that "new tight instructions from South Block might have dictated Ambassador Rajan to speak in such an outright manner".

Conversely, prior to this Pokhara statement he remained clearly sympathetic for the resumption of the IC flights to Kathmandu and in the past he did play a meaningful role in enhancing the bilateral ties, maintains yet another section of Nepalese intellectuals.

So much so that a vernacular weekly, a Sundayer, supposedly close to Koirala camp in its editorial column scathingly criticized the fresh Indian overtures and hastily dubbed them as " long conceived grand design" to post their men at the airport and thus monitor the entire security systems at Nepal's single airport. This was simply surprising coming as it did from a quarter close to the government and the latter being considered to be close to the Indian establishment. Surprising though it was, but it did happen.

Talking to the Telegraph at the March 26 Bangladesh embassy reception, the newly appointed foreign minister, Mr. Chakra Prasad Bastola, said that " the ongoing rumors of the Indian security personels being posted at the TIA with government's consent is all a gossip and that Nepal will not allow such things to happen in her territory".

"It's all bull shit", added the minister.

"The IC flights will resume soon and that no security personals will be allowed to function at the TIA on any pretext or the other. The Indian team is arriving Kathmandu for talks and we will finalize every thing in a cordial manner", concluded the minister.

At the same party, the Indian Ambassador told this scribe that "he was misquoted by a journalist at the venue of the press conference".

However, the Ambassador also hinted that the suspended flights of the Indian airlines would resume soon.

 Those who understand India better fail to guess as to what could be the Nepali assurance(s) which will melt the otherwise "security conscious" India for the resumption of the now abruptly suspended Indian airlines flights to Kathmandu.

Altogether there are 17 flights from India to Kathmandu every week.

The crux of the matter is that the IC flights will come to Kathmandu when it is being finalized by a Nepali foreign minister who himself had engineered the first ever hijack of a Nepali aircraft some three decades back. Unconfirmed reports have it that a case is still pending against the minister in Bihar, India where the plane was flown in after the hijack.

Is it a mere conjecture or some thing else? Keep on guessing.

 However, if the IC flights to Kathmandu resume then it would be perhaps the best gift to the Nepali nation from the out going Indian Ambassador, Sri K.V.Rajan.

Deuba still a formidable threat to Koirala!

Kathmandu: Clearly various seen and unseen forces appear to be in constant work to destabilize Prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala's new found regime.

His declared official opposition political parties' apart, hostile lobbies well inside the congress camp too have stepped up their activities in their fresh bid to corner Prime minister Koirala both within the party and without.

One such disturbing news has appeared in a Deuba close newspaper, which suggests that the former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, a declared bete noir of Girija Prasad, is in search of a "private office" meant solely for initiating "meaningful contacts" with the NC lawmakers in particular and the other party activists in general.

To recall, Prime minister Koirala continues to have one such office in Maharajgunj which he only recently used for "making rapport" with the disgruntled NC lawmakers who sought his help in ousting Prime minister Bhattarai from his coveted chair.

Undoubtedly, the Koirala camp has reasons to feel disturbed as the opening of such contact corners possess the possibility of attracting disgruntled parliamentarians who could conclude that they were cheated at time of the cabinet formation.

Indeed, there is already a bunch of the NC lawmakers who have already voiced their grievances. This lot had hoped for a ministerial berth in the present ministry in lieu of their all out support extended to Koirala in the latter's bid to oust his competing rival that is Bhattarai.

 "It is this section of the disgruntled and the fragile parliamentarians who could be easily seduced by Deuba in his favor thus swelling the present strength to a new height", said a congressite to this scribe Tuesday morning.

To recall, Deuba currently enjoys the numerical strength of 43 parliamentarians and any addition to this already swollen number means a constant and a permanent threat to Prime Minister Koirala and to his government as well.

" Deuba still has not forgotten the sad episode when some influential leaders engineered the untimely demise of his government and perhaps is waiting for an opportune moment to give a befitting reply to that", said a Deubaite on conditions of anonymity to this scribe.

 Independent observers opine that if the freshly deposed Prime Minister Bhattarai so wishes to destabilise his competing rival he can do so easily in collaboration of the Deuba strength.

However, Bhattarai spoke his mind the other day that he would wait for one year to comment on Girija's performance.

In saying so, Bhattarai appears to have hinted Koirala that whatever he did against him in the recent past was Koirala's political immaturity.

Whether Deuba uses his contact office for the purpose of annoying Koirala or prefers to maintain a wait and see posture is some thing that can't be predicted at this stage. 

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