I n d e p t h    A n a l y s i s

Crisis if no immediate correction!

Kathmandu: Nepali society is pregnant with heightened expectations. Curiously the summoning of the next winter session of the parliament for next week has done little to assuage these expectations. Whether or not the UML will endorse the emergency matters little to a public aware that the requirement of the two thirds support of the sitting members of the House can be fulfilled, as already previously demonstrated, by a UML boycott demonstrating public disagreement but, in effect, supporting the move. Similarly too, the parliamentary process for the support of another six months extension of the emergency can be equally surreptitiously made available. In effect, again what goes on in the parliament may matter little to the public standpoints of the parliamentary parties. Again, the question of endorsing the major adjustments in the fiscal policy in this winter session has already been answered by the promulgation of budgetary ordinances. In effect thus a winter session that is to tackle the political emergency and the financial crunch so surreally is hardly likely to satiate the environment of expectations generated by the crises approaching the country.

What matters is that the public expectations should be fulfilled soon regardless of the goings on in the parliament. It is not the parliament or the parliamentary parties that have heightened these expectations. In a real sense, it is the failure of parliamentary parties and the parliament to take up these issues tangibly that has resulted in these expectations. It is public recognition that both parliamentary parties and parliament have contributed to the current crises that makes the concurrence for real and tangible solutions among the public climatic. What the announcement of the winter session has done is that there is public concurrence that things can't be allowed to go as they are beyond this point. It is the failure of the political establishment to echo this public concern that makes the public weary that parliament and parliamentary parties are either incapable or unwilling to deliver the corrections required in Nepali democracy.

Regardless of the fact that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is assuming a hawkish posture in demonstrating his willingness to deliver the change, the public are aware that he is unable to make the change in his own coterie if he is to remain where he is. The public moreover have been told in more ways than one that Deuba's Nepali Congress has a leadership in Girija Koirala that will not allow the incumbent Prime Minister any advantage of the change. At yet another level, the grass-roots so affected by the Maoists insurgency are very clear that the opposition communist parties would merely want to take advantage of cadre numbers from the anti-insurgency move rather than win-over a population disenchanted from their rhetoric and thus diverted to the action oriented radicalism of the Maoists. The opposition Left have been so exposed as to have made their continuing vacillation on unity moves merely of perfunctory public interest.

The fact of the matter is that the public at large want an immediate correction in the convoluted law and order situation. They want immediate relief from the mounting economic pressures. They want in essence radical reforms in a political process that lacks any correction for rampant organizational excesses of the political sector. The public are aware that the political sector itself has been so monopolized by the political parties that they are so much a part of the problem that they can't be the source of correction. If the corrections are not forthcoming immediately, society is in a path of implosion.

How much sincere is Koirala for his much publicized BDA plan?

Kathmandu: The supposed guardian of an already divided house is in a pious move to bring about greater unity among all the major political parties of the nation in order to what he claims to safeguard the system and do away with the present ailments that have gripped the country of late.

In the process the guardian of a particular party has been constantly visiting the leaders of other political parties in order to garner support for his mysterious Broader Democratic Alliance or otherwise the BDA.

To recall, the BDA is the brainchild of Nepali Congress President Sri Girija Prasad Koirala. Neither President Koirala has been able to convince the raison de etre of such an alliance to his party-men nor he has felt the need to take the lay men into his confidence. But yet then why the UML stalwarts or for that matter the men belonging to the RPP paraphernalia plus the Sadbhavana activists throng to President Koirala?

Is it really a pious move launched by president Koirala? Were it not a ploy to destabilize the Deuba regime? Is Koirala move an entirely Nepali brain child or some instigation for extraneous forces? Will Koirala initiative boost the morale of the nation's armed forces who were at the moment fighting with the insurgents? Or is it that Koirala really has sensed a threat to this order from some quarters but he does not wish to divulge?

These were some of the questions which the initiator of the BDA must answer prior to mustering support from the needed quarters.

However, analyzing all these questions in the existing Nepali context what comes to the fore firstly is that President Koirala has a plan indeed in his mind for the materialization of which he needs support from all major political actors of the nation. Whether the move is a pious one or not will have to be left to the incumbent Prime Minister. Because it is Deuba who should feel the brunt of the Koirala initiative. It is Deuba and Deuba alone who could be the best judge of the Koirala BDA plan. If its initiation is simply to destabilize his regime, it would be considered a move brought with ulterior motive. Sources close to Deuba have been ventilating their concern regarding the untimely initiative of president of Koirala which apparently means that for the incumbent regime the Koirala initiative was nothing more than a ploy to bring about a collapse of Deuba establishment. This again means that the move could be interpreted by Koirala camp as a pious one, however, the other rival camp concludes that it has an ulterior motive underneath.

Regarding the UML's tentative support to Koirala moves, what could be said that UML as a communist entity is playing double indeed. The UML men understand better what would mean if they support Koirala initiatives at this crucial juncture. The UML knows fully well that the NC is a badly divided house and hence any further support extended to Koirala at time of the state of emergency will widen further the already divided house. If the congress house is further divided on this count would mean a plus point to the communists. The UML men will wish to break the congress house further for they have already tasted the pains of division. In doing so the UML apparently is guided by the simple logic that a divided congress can't compete the UML at the elections. This is a fact. The UML is giving a fillip to the congress tussle only to benefit from their ongoing rift. Consider what would happen if the congress remains badly battered and the UML leaders manage the happy reunion with the ML?

Definitely, the congress will feel dwarfed after the UML-ML unification. Question could be asked as to why the UML that created havoc during the 19 the session of the parliament and demanded the outright resignation of Prime Minister Koirala over the Lauda scam suddenly becomes supportive of the Koirala plans? After all what factors could motivate or for that matter compel the UML now to support Koirala? The answer should be simple. Either it is the design of the UML to benefit from the congress rift or some extraneous forces might have told the UML to do so.

However, let's forget that it could be a part of greater design of some foreign powers. UML by this time has already attained maturity and knows fully well on how to play politics in the given scheme of things.

But yet then the UML men have point blank told Koirala that they will support his BDA plan if the new set under Koirala initiates actions against all the beneficiaries of various scams that have had rocked the nation at different intervals of Nepal's turbulent 12 democratic years.

Sources say that in saying so the UML apparently wished to hint Koirala that since he enjoyed much of the democratic years as nation's prime minister and hence he should prepare himself as well for possible penal actions for his alleged involvement in scams like Dhamija and the Lauda affair.

Finally, it is time that president Koirala must speak his mind as to whether he has really sensed a threat to this order or it were simply his imagination? He must now tell the lay men that the threat to the system emanated from this or that quarters?

Unless he speaks how could people believe in his imaginative works. Failing to do so would mean that his BDA is nothing but a ploy to unseat his political rival Deuba. Failing to do so moreover will irritate the common men as well who already consider Koirala as a power-lust leader who more often than not comes out with a nation-saving formulae as and when he is out of power.

Is it not sufficient to prove that Koirala's intentions are not that pious as he would prefer to give all and sundry to understand?

A guardian-less nation indeed!

Kathmandu: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba claims to be serious in restoring peace in the nation and clearly hints that he would need a further extension to the state of emergency in the country.

President Koirala too forwards his claim that he was serious in safeguarding the system from seen and unseen quarters and for that he too needs all pervasive support to his almost abstract Broader Democratic Alliance plan.

The UML is also in the same race and maintains that its sole desire is to see a vibrant nation wherein all the people could live in peace and that the government of the day must heed to some of their tips in order to save the country from the approaching economic collapse. In the process the party also requires some tangible support from the rest of the political actors of the nation.

The RPP and the Sadbhavana apparently too give the impression that in order to save the country from going to the brink, a sort of national consensus has got to be instantly worked out and warns that failing to do so will bring only disasters in the country. In the process the RPP wishes to bag the "confidence" of the constitutional monarch as well.

If one were to analyze these three separate wishes of the three/four different political parties, what one could grasp is that all wish an economically prosperous nation and that all were more or less concerned with the present fluid state of the nation. Moreover, what is also evident from their separate desires is that all of these political forces conclude that a mechanism has got to be developed that enjoys the total and unconditional support and sympathies from all the sectors of the Nepali society which could revive the sinking health of the nation more so after the imposition of the state of emergency.

What also becomes clear from their wishes is that all would wish to see the state of emergency lifted at the earliest.

However, the political parties do not take responsibilities for the sorry state of the nation. For they must understand that it were these political parties who at different intervals of time had been in power and that the present day pathetic state of the nation were their combined contribution.

To shift blame onto others' heads is very easy job indeed. However, to accept the responsibility for the mal-performance or bad governance during one's own tenure in government is a very difficult task.

The majority of the Nepali population who were left into the cold after the restoration of the democratic order would wish that the political parties who ruled the nation after 1990 accept that they too had contributed for the present state of the nation.

The population which was not allowed to participate in the mainstream national politics would ask the leaders of the NC, UML, RPP and the likes as to who caused the sudden growth of the Maoists insurgents? What were the causes that forced the Nepali youths to join the bands of the insurgents?

Thanks that the visiting US dignitary Colin Powell could understand that the utter frustration and the lack of job opportunities for the illiterate youth of the remote parts of the country could also have caused this insurgency to grow in no time.

A personality who had never been in Nepal could conclude that it should be the mal-governance and practically no deliverance of goods to the "democratic" people of this country by the successive governments formed in Nepal after 1990 too could have amply contributed to the geometrical growth of the insurgents and hence the state of emergency.

Accepting the facts and the failures caused due to one's own weaknesses will benefit politically in the long run. However, the fact is that none of the political parties wish to accept the blunders they committed while being in power.

Can Koirala escape from this accusation? By the same token can Madhav Nepal escape from the same? Can S.B.Thapa collect the courage that he did not commit mistakes during his tenure in government?

The fact is that all these political parties while in power concentrated their efforts either in amassing wealth and thereby contributed to the furtherance of corruption in the nation or remained busy in making the national politics a dirty one.

The grand reduction buy/sale of Nepali lawmakers; sending lawmakers to massage parlors in Bangkok; forcing the dubious lawmakers to go in on for hibernation and tempting one's own lawmaker to cause the collapse of its own party government; making the international airport free for gold smugglers are some of the few notorious actions which Nepali democracy witnessed well within twelve years of democratic rule.

Who is to be blamed for all these ugly practices? Is it the lay men to be blamed? Or should the men who allowed such sad practices to prevail be penalized?

Issuing statements and weeping for the sorry state of the nation will not work now. The people know who is what now. Shedding crocodile tears will not improve their already tarnished and corrupt image among the public.

Has Nepal become guardian-less? Is there any authority who would listen to people's grievances?

This is not to provoke the constitutional monarch to intervene. Nepali Intellectuals wish that the constitutional monarch remains where he is at the moment. However, if he is really the guardian, and perhaps He is as per the existing constitution, He could summon the men handling the system and could warn them all and instruct them to deliver goods. If He does so perhaps will be in the fitness of the things.

The secret meeting that was!

Kathmandu: Nepal's conspiratorial politics is all set to take its tall.

A secret meeting of some of Nepal's noted politicians/leaders is said to have taken place at Surya Bahadur Thapa's private residence in Maligaon, Kathmandu, this Sunday.

The RPP leader S. B. Thapa is a shrewd politician indeed and hence a secret meeting at his place must have some meaning in it.

The meeting has taken place at a time when the nation has just completed two months of the imposition of the state of emergency and that most of the political parties of the nation have been demanding an end to the emergency. On the contrary, the nation's prime minister remains undeterred and declares that he would go on in for yet another round of extension to the state of emergency.

Those who met secretly at Thapa's place are President Koirala, an arch-rival of Prime Minister Deuba; UML's K.P.Woli, a declared detractor of strongman Madhav Nepal of his own party and Sadbhana's Badri Prasad Mandal who perhaps would wish to see him elevated to the ranks of the NSP's chairman after the sad and sudden demise of Gajendra Nrayan Singh.

To recall, while RPP's Thapa is a staunch advocator of forging an all party consensus, president Koirala has forwarded his idea of forming a sort of broader democratic alliance to get rid of the present what he prefers to call political vacuum in the face of the emergency.

What the UML prefers is not yet clear but what is evident is that the party would wish that the NC becomes more and more weak due to their never ending in-party squabbling. Woli is a key-player in UML politics. Naturally Woli would also wish that he too remain at the center-stage of national politics.

However, what the NSP's Badri Mandal will benefit from such secret meetings at a time when his party is yet to decide the next chairmanship will take some more time to come to the open.

Nevertheless, the Maligaon meeting will have its impact on the national politics which could only be seen at time of the winter session.

Unconfirmed reports have it that the secret meeting has decided to impress upon Deuba regime to shorten the duration of the emergency; to trim the existing jumbo sized cabinet and lastly but very importantly to allow the political parties to assess the performance of the security forces at time of the emergency. The secret meeting also concluded that the security forces in some districts committed excesses.

The participants at the meet decided to request the prime minister to act as per their requests. It was also apparently decided that should Deuba rejected their sound proposals then appropriate actions against the latter would be thought of.

The NSP participant is learnt to have told the gathering that Deuba be allowed some more time. The UML stalwart apparently hinted that trimming of the cabinet was a must. President Koirala is learnt to have hinted the participants that things would go even worse if Deuba were allowed to continue. In saying so, Koirala indicated that in the present scheme of things he could be the single option.

Nevertheless, the impending winter session will be a tougher one for Deuba to handle. How he survives from the visible and invisible attacks to his "lethargic" regime will have to be watched.

The fact is that the Deuba regime is too slow and has not performed well even at time of the emergency. Intellectuals say that Deuba could have accomplished marvelous jobs in favor of the common men. But he couldn't and hence must face the consequences.

Does this mean that Koirala will again bounce back to power? Which of the political parties will support Koirala in his clandestine move? Will a motion of no-confidence be moved by NC parliamentarians against their own party-prime minister?

The answers to all these questions perhaps hinges on how Deuba performs at time of the winter session.

Russian-American talks in Ensuring International Security

Kathmandu: Russia and the United States of America possess a broad range of possibilities for productive co-operation in different fields of ensuring international security, above all within the framework of the antiterrorist coalition, Oleg Chernov, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, declared today at a meeting with the US Ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow in Moscow, it is learnt.

During the talks that took place on January 24, a wide range of questions of bilateral relations also was discussed.

Chernov said that Russia and the USA are interested in seeing substantial progress achieved at the upcoming summit in Russia this year in the matter of solving problems related to the consolidation of strategic stability, including with consideration of the USA's announced withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.

The Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council noted the necessity to do everything possible for the practical realisation of the agreements on consolidating strategic stability, as achieved by the presidents of the two countries during last year's Russian-American summit meetings.

This has been stated in a press note issued by the Nepal based embassy of the Russian Federation.

UN special session dedicated for children

Kathmandu: The UN Special Session on Children has been formally rescheduled by the UN General Assembly for 8-10 May 2002 in New York.

The Special Session, originally planned for 19-21 September 2001, was postponed following the tragic events of 11 September. A Children's Forum will take place on 6-7 May before the Special Session.

The Special Session on Children will be a landmark meeting of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the children and young people of the world. It will bring together government leaders and Heads of the States, NGOs, children's advocates and young people themselves to measure the progress made for children since the historic World Summit for Children in 1990, and explore ways to change the world with children.

The gathering will present a great opportunity to change the way the world views and treats children as well as renew commitments for future action for children. More than 80 heads of states and governments are expected to congregate to deliberate on children’s welfare and rights. They will endorse the outcome document resulting from the Special Session, "A World Fit for Children. Based on the outcome document, countries will prepare national plans of actions for the next decade.

Coinciding with the preparation for the Special Session, the Global Movement for Children is being carried out in Nepal as in the rest of the world. It is an ongoing crusade for the restoration of dignity, security, and self-fulfillment of children. The Save the Children Alliance (UK, Norway, US and Japan), Unicef and Plan International have been playing key roles in spearheading this campaign together with the Government, NGOs, child clubs, media, private sector and communities.

Say Yes for Children referendum, National Children's Fair, South Asia Change Makers' Workshop and various other programmes were organized in Nepal to support the movement.

THAI Wins Advertising Award in Japan

Kathmandu: The advertising campaign of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited's Osaka Office has recently been declared the winner of the "Kodansha Advertising Award 2001". THAI has been the recipient of this prestigious award for two consecutive years.

Mr. Tasnai Sudasna, THAI's Executive Vice President, said that, "This advertising campaign aims to promote THAI's flight operations and passengers' convenience on the route between Osaka to Bangkok, with a visual presentation focusing on THAI's midnight flight that says TG is waiting for you at the airport at midnight. The ad was launched in the Kansai One Week, one of the most popular magazines among Japanese teenage readers".

Kodansha Advertising Award was launched in 1979, and the recipients of the award are selected based on appraisals and votes submitted by readers of the magazine. This year, over 60,000 readers participated in voting for the advert of their choice.

THAI was awarded the Kodansha Advertising Award silver prize last year.

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