Deuba must have carrot and stick both…

We were the one among the crowd of many who jubilantly hailed the entrance in government of the incumbent Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba some six months back. We did so solely because he somehow or the other managed to bring the Maoists insurgents for talks and in the process could yet again manage to hold talks with the insurgents for three rounds in series. Understandably, to bring the rebels to the negotiating table was not an easy task indeed. But he did it given the fact that his predecessor Girija Prasad Koirala neither intended to bring into effect this initiative nor the political environment existing then supported him. In the process the country could take a little respite from the disturbed order of the peace and of the indiscriminate killings of both: the innocent civilians, the men in the security apparatus plus the men belonging to the insurgency itself. We did support Deuba in the sense that it was he who gave peace a chance. We did openly support him for it was he who stopped the killings of the sons of the soil whether they belonged to this or that camp. We did so also because we have ever remained supporters of the prevalence of peace not only in our country but everywhere in the world. In the same vein we also supported the Maoists decision to attend the talks with the government because they from their side too guaranteed that peace would prevail in the country and no bullets would be fired anywhere in the country. All these were hard facts even if some one liked it or not.

All said and done, it is time that the incumbent Prime Minister should resign at the earliest. He should do so considering his avowal that if he failed in bringing the Maoists issue to a positive ending, he would resign. This he made at the very outset of assuming the post of the nation's Prime Minister. He should resign also because he has utterly failed in bringing about a halt to the spree of killings on either sides of the camp that is both ways Nepalese were being killed. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba should resign at the earliest because he is speaking a voice that forces us to conclude that in his scheme of things there is no room for negotiations with the insurgents. If he were a real politician, we hoped that he was, he would have never capped the possibilities of the resumption of the dialogue process, which is what he should have kept it open. He should now resign because in politics all the possible avenues should be kept open in order to get the desired results even if it were time consuming. In this regard he has miserably failed and hence he must resign. He should resign for he has remained insensitive towards the sentimental feelings of the common men, intellectuals, civil society members, human rights activists and a section of his own party men who now openly urge the prime minister to initiate actions that resumed the process of dialogues. The Prime Minister says he wouldn't. Prime Minister Deuba must read the writings on the wall, which now very clearly hints that his days in government were numbered.

We as a responsible newspaper would yet suggest the Prime Minister to heed to the demands of the majority of the population including the informed citizenry and invite the insurgents to the negotiating table. If he does so will definitely be applauded for any initiatives from any quarter(s) that is aimed at restoring peace and bringing peace in this troubled nation should be a matter of satisfaction to us all. Going against this spirit would mean that the incumbent Prime Minister is against the popular will of the people. We hope that Sher Bahadur Deuba will take the feelings of the people in good humor. If he wishes to crush the wishes of the people and exhibits his arrogance of the sort of his predecessor, his fate as a political man is approaching a collapse. His own declared rival(s)in his own party were perhaps enough to bring him down for clear and understandable reasons.

Be that as it may, the nation will remember Sher Bahadur Deuba as the Prime Minister who initiated the talks with the insurgents but miserably failed to negotiate peace with the other camp. However, the fact is also that the Maoists left the talks in a limbo thus forcing him to initiate drastic measures against the insurgency. But yet what is the harm in giving peace yet another chance? We think that if the Prime Minister does initiate talks with the insurgents his size and popularity will not go down but rather his height and prestige will go up.

It is time that the Prime Minister should not only possess sticks in his hand but must have sweets too. What this means perhaps needs no further explanation. We wish Deuba to be remembered for long even he quits voluntarily or even is forced to quit by his own party-detractors.

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