I n d e p t h    A n a l y s i s
Potent schism pregnant with change!

Kathmandu: The virtual contradictions in Nepali politics have become confusingly highlighted this week and making sense of it all is not easy. The Maoists reality reflected itself in the separate two day BUNDHS declared in all the regions of the country and there is heightened sense of expectation on the results of its eastern region Bundh timed to coincide with the HM the King’s trip to Biratnagar to receive felicitations there.

This week also sees national focus on the monarchy with remembrance ceremonies dedicated to the late King Birendra, ,official B’day functions of HRH Crown Prince and of course, again the king’s first public trip of the size and strength of public felicitations at Biratnagar.

Perhaps to highlight these contradictions two surveys carry meaning: the one most carried by our loaded media is a survey indicating over 70% of the Nepalese people favors the multiparty system. Another spot poll carried by a major paper and ignored by others is one that concludes that King Gyanendra is the personality of the year chosen by most readers. The fact of the matter is that King Gyanendra is being seen as the lone individual with the capacity to put our democracy on track. The support given the multiparty system is real, but questions regarding its state in Nepal were missing in the poll and so the seemingly lopsided view. The people support the king to correct the aberrations.

By now every one concludes that declaring a Bundh and employing even Kathmandu roads has become easy. For the Maoists, their presence with bombs as to the pressure to close shutters. And so the declared Bundhs have become routine enough to allow corner shops to open, offices to do business and emergency traffic to run. Of course, the inconvenience is there but a declared Bundh will have its effect.

The novelty will lie, however, in the fact that the sea of faces expected in Biratnagar for mass felicitation program for the King will not have been stalled Friday by the Maoists Bundh. This is despite the violence that is expected. More over, this is despite the active opposition to the felicitation program by the Nepali Congress and the UML. The novelty moreover lies in the evident coalition between these parliamentary parties and the Maoists to oppose the Royal program. It is here that the schism is most evident. The people and their King versus the Maoists and the parties. Such a schism is potent indeed.

Major shift in Maoists thinking evident
Dr. Bhattarai favors unity among prevailing dominant powers for positive results

Kathmandu: By now it has become clear that it is the Maoists insurgency that is swinging Nepali politics in a manner its leadership desires.

Bluntly speaking, it is the Maoists leadership that is forcing the country’s politics to take a shape as desired by them for it is seen that first the Maoists leaders issue a statement and instantly the mainstream political parties, more specifically speaking, the congress toes the line.

This shift has become most evident after the Royal step of October 4 which has been described as totally unconstitutional by Nepal’s major political parties and lately joined by the Maoists insurgency as well.

The Maoists apparently sent signals to the political parties that in their joint bid in deriding at the (mis)adventures of the constitutional monarch for his steps taken in series beginning October 4, they too were with them and time permitting could openly wage a joint struggle against the monarch and thus press him to correct the political aberration that the monarch brought in the functioning of the constitution.

A clever UML carefully studied the statements emanating from the Maoists quarters and appeared reluctant in arriving at a hasty conclusion. In doing so, the UML has had its own reservations which we will discuss later. In sum, the UML took the Maoists leaders’ statement in a different way that the congress, more specifically speaking, the Koirala congress did.

In the process, the Koirala congress apparently considered the Maoists insurgency a reliable ally with whom it could forge a sort of unity at least to frighten the monarch hoping that the monarch would yield as per the party’s demands. However, that was not forthcoming.

The Koirala congress got too much excited with the statements emanating from the insurgency quarters which spoke against the monarch to the extent that the former made a forced landing to New Delhi and met Dr. Bhattarai in Jalandhar, India and held "meaningful" discussions reportedly. However, whether Koirala met Comrade Prachanda or not is yet to be verified. The meeting apparently had been arranged through the kind courtesy of a controversial "socialist" leader who during Koirala’s premiership in the mid 1990s sneaked into the Chinese territory and upon return to Kathmandu made statements against China.

Informed sources say that Dr. Bhattarai rejected the plea of Koirala that the latter’s cadres be not killed by the Maoists insurgents. Sources say that Koirala and Bhattarai agreed on many counts. A beaming Koirala returned Nepal and began passing on threatening comments against the monarch. The monarch apparently listened to his Rajbiraj comments but has yet to retort to the formers’ fiery comments. Whether he would do so or not only time will tell.

But Koirala’s bonhomie with Dr. Bhattarai appears to have gone to the dogs. The man who expected much from the insurgency in pressing the monarch to yield perhaps should have received a major jolt after reading Dr. Bhattarai’s fresh interview granted to a newspaper Jan Awaj Internet edition.

Dr. Bhattarai in no uncertain terms has offered for talks and that too with those who believe in the institution of the monarch and those who consider themselves the followers of the parliamentary system.

"To avert the possibilities or the likelihood of a foreign intervention in the country, we advocate a sort of unity in between the monarchists, parliamentary parties and the Maoists insurgency"" says Dr. Bhattarai.

Not only this, Dr. Bhattarai adds: "it is not very important with whom the talks have got to be initiated. What is important at this juncture is that one should take into account as to who could be that the talks with whom yielded positive results. One has to take into account the very solid reality of the present "balance of power". In saying so, Dr. Bhattarai clearly hints that the forces now in play in the nation were the King, the parliamentary parties and the insurgency.

This means that the insurgency still considers the King a major force of the nation and hence would not mind in initiating talks with the panel that includes the King’s nominee. This is implied indeed.

What also becomes clear is that the insurgency would wish to continue the now stalled talks but says that "the talks should not be only for talks", but instead it should yield positive outcomes.

This clearly indicates that the insurgency disillusioned Koirala during his India sojourn.

Strikingly enough, Dr. Bhattarai wishes that mediatory roles could be played by interested national or internal forces which will keep the extraneous forces at a distance. In the same vein Dr. Bhattarai opines that the insurgency would not mind if some external neutral and independent institutions wish to act as mediator in solving the imbroglio.

This clearly means that the insurgency was open to the possibility of inviting a mediatory role for any one, national or international.

This leads us to think that the insurgency could accept if the United Nations or for that matter the recognised international mediators wished to come to the scene. It could be Denmark, the Netherlands, the Norwegians or for that matter Germany or France

A very positive development indeed,

The most important of it all is that Dr. Bhattarai has said that for the time being they could join the parliamentary system considering the geo-political location of the country.

"Realising consciously from the successes and the failures from the cases of China and Russia, we consider that jumping onto the people’s democracy at this juncture would not be a wise decision and thus, we wish to practice at least one step of the parliamentary democracy", adds Dr. Bhattarai.

All put together, what comes to the fore is that Bhattarai wishes talks, it accepts the monarch as a force; it would not mind if some one mediated their case with the government; and that Koirala was simply mislead.

Is this a new strategy recently developed by the insurgency? Who knows? But yet if Dr. Bhattarai’s assertions were what he meant then what could be said that things will change perhaps for the better if both the sides stick to their utterances which at times offer double meaning indeed.

A clever UML knew in advance that the Maoists were playing hide and seek with president of the splinter Koirala congress and hence kept a comfortable distance with the insurgent quarters.

Telegraph /FES media seminar
Excessively biased media has done little in favor of the nation’s youths and system'’ :Experts

Kathmandu: Nepal’s noted academicians, youth activists and the widely acclaimed media men have voiced their concerns regarding the sorry state of Nepali youths who, according to them, remain in utter confusion and direction-less due to the sheer negligence exhibited by the State over the years towards their pressing issues and problems.

The same set also concurrently expressed their anxiety over the dismal performance of the Nepali media in addressing to the issues of the youths and called upon the government to devise schemes that took care of the problems of the youths in order to tap the immense potential what the youths possess in them which could be later used for the benefit of the nation.

The scholars also lamented over the attitudes of the political leaders and their parties in having defined the democratic system in a manner that suited to their political tilts and urged the major political actors to refrain from doing so in the larger interest of the system and the nation as well.

This they said while attending a one-day media seminar entitled "Youth, Media and Democracy", jointly organized by the Telegraph Weekly in close cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung last Friday.

Welcoming the galaxy of scholars attending the seminar at the inaugural session, the chief editor of the Telegraph Weekly, Mr. N.P.Upadhyaya said that the governments formed after 1990 were summarily to be blamed for the present plight of the Nepali youths who find themselves in a very pathetic situation today.

"Th media too remained a silent spectator to the plight of the Nepali youths. Instead of informing the youths, we disinformed them", added Upadhyaya.

Former president of the Federation of Nepalese journalists, Mr. Suresh Acharya, said that the October 4 events have raised doubts whether the Nepali media would be allowed to practice media freedom as guaranteed by the constitution.

The Kathmandu district president of the FNJ, Mr. Hari Lamsal, opined that various efforts were in the offing to do away with the plight of the small weekly newspapers.

Scholar Anand Aditya highlighted the role of the media and the youths in a democracy like ours.

"The Nepali media has a tremendous role to play in order to strengthen the system. It has also a role in pressing the establishment to look into the matters related to the plight of the youths who appear disillusioned by the existing chaotic state of the nation’s politics as it stood today", said Anand Aditya.

The Public Relations Officer at the US Embassy. Ms. Constance Colding Jones, the chief guest of the seminar said that "in a democracy, the media have a civic duty as well particularly to the young people—to inform, to teach, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge the capacities of thinking, to deepen understanding, explain the world and teach the great traditions of freedom".

The chief guest made it abundantly clear that the media can and should itself become an example by presenting balanced information, by abstaining from propagating wild rumors, by examining stories to make sure they represented the facts.

She also said that the media men must frame a code of ethics and practice on how to remain within the limits of the code thus charted while reporting an event. ( Her speech will appear next week—ed).

The first session saw a working paper presentation by a noted sociologist of the country , Dr. Krishna Bhattachan who said that "the current degeneration in politics and escalating violence and counter violence in insurgency situation was primarily due to the exclusionary, highly centralized, West Minister model of democracy"’. According to Dr. Bhattachan, what was needed instead was a multi-caste/ethnic, language, religion, culture and region and which is what constitutes an "inclusive democracy". ( See the full text in second page-ed).

Speaking from the chair, Professor Mohd. Habibullah said that certain political aberrations were seen at the moment which he hoped would vanish time permitting.

Poof. Dr. Ram Kumar Dahal, yet another political scientist of repute, presented his paer on th same topic wherein he maintained that the "triangular relationship among the youths, media and democracy in today’s globalised world has become a subject matter of prime concern in any political and social system and hence it would be important to note here that the youths are the subjects of socialization within the nation-state, the media are the means of such socialization and democracy, thus, become a value or ideal to be achieved both by the subjects and the means".

Speaking from the Chair, Mr. Shrish Rana, a widely acclaimed political analyst, said that the excessively biased Nepali media had done little all along these democratic years to address the genuine grievances of the people and that the youths too must not become the political tools of various political parties.

Madhav Nepal’s detractors prefer elections during Feb convention

Kathmandu: The UML is at the moment busy in having its 7th general convention held in February next month.

Insiders of the UML say that this time of the convention scheduled to be held in Janakpur will bring face to face the two declared arch rivals: Madhav Nepal and K.P.Woli. The bone of contention is the retaining or capturing of the post of the GS of the party. The race is on in between Madhav Nepal and K.P.Woli.

The second agenda that is expected to dominate the entire proceedings of the convention is the selection of a new chairman for the party which remains vacant since the death of Man Mohan Adhikary.

While Madhav Nepal and his followers wish to retain the posts through arriving at a consensus as in the past, his rivals prefer on the spot elections for the posts of the GS and the chairmanship right inside the convention hall.

" The party must exhibit democratic credentials and hence elections should decide the fate of the presidency and the post of the General Secretary", opines Bam Dev Gautam of the UML.

Critics of the UML say that the party lacks democratic culture.

The fact is that Madhav Nepal wishes to continue his grip over the party affairs as usual and thus prefers a consensus for the post what he is having now. His detractors reject his views which means that the impending round of the UML convention would not be a cake-walk for Madhav.

In the process, the party apparently has divided into two groups; the one that supports Madhav Nepal unconditionally and the second is the one which wishes to establish a democratic tradition in the party to decide the allotments of the key posts of the party.

Some even claim that the Palace too is interested in the UML convention. Some even predict that the personality who will enjoy the Palace support will emerge as victorious. However, this is yet unclear as to whether or not the Palace was interested in their affair and that which of the two or even three, Madhav, Bamdev or even K.P.Woli, were to be blessed by the Palace at time of the election.

Be that as it may, the UML for the time being would wish a smooth going convention. It would also wish to keep itself in a low profile on the nation’s pressing issues by exhibiting that the party were engaged in its convention and that the convention were more important than the issues confronting the nation.

Reports reaching this newspaper reveal that there is a vigorous eaves-dropping going on in the party to find out the person who would enjoy the blessings of the Palace.

Sounds interesting. If it is so then it would allow us all to understand the UML as a party of the communists better.

Talks are also there inside the party to ascertain which UML stalwart enjoys foreign blessing. This is expected so because if some one in the party could enjoy the Palace blessing then some one in the party must have the foreign blessings.

Would it be then a tussle between the Palace preference and the foreign one?

Let’s wait till the convention in February.

Nepal-U.S sign accord

Kathmandu: The governments of Nepal and the United States signed Tuesday an accord not to surrender or otherwise transfer each other’s nationals to any international court without the prior consent of the other contracting party.

To recall, Nepal and the US share the highest regard for international standards of human rights, and remain firmly committed to presenting anyone guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.

The signing of this agreement in no way diminishes that commitment. Instead this accord reflects mutual concerns regarding the International Criminal Court Treaty, including its possible implications for national sovereignty, the role of the UNSC, and its lack of appropriate checks and balances.

The US government looks forward to continued cooperation with the government of Nepal on such crucial areas of international importance as human rights, counter-terrorism, and peacekeeping, states a press release issued by the USIA, December 31, 2002. 

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