Youth, Media and Peace-II

Dr. K.B. Bhattachan

MEDIA AND YOUTH ON PEACE

Media on Peace:

Media indeed play a vital role in maintaining democracy and peace. Different actors contest Media’s role on building peace. The government officials and ruling political leaders blame the Nepalese and international media for downgrading the government and increasing confidence of the Maoist insurgents. On the contrary, media professionals argue that media had thrived and expanded greatly after the people’s movement of 1990 and that media has contributed greatly for the establishment of peace through news and views.

As media is dominated and monopolized by certain sections or groups of the Nepalese society, it has favoured status quo in the society, which means perpetuation of structural and cultural violence against women, indigenous nationalities, Madheis and linguistic and religious groups.

Youth on Peace

Youth live in two different worlds, one of the "old regime" or the His Majesty’s Government and the other of the " the Maoist insurgents. The latter is said to have control in 70 percent of the land, specially most of the rural areas, in Nepal. Many youths, both females and males, have joined in insurgency or "people’s war." His Majesty’s Government of Nepal is increasing its military strength and trying to find its military solutions, though all international friends and Nepalese civil society organizations are saying that there is no military solution to the current insurgency. Hence, both integrated security forces of HMG-N and the armed insurgents are daily engaged in violence and counter violence. Thus, many youth are directly engaged in the civil war. This internal war has affected schools; relatively more in the rural areas where many youths are not getting education. Instead, many youths are killed, disappeared, displaced, and forced to migrate to India and various parts of Nepal.

URGENT ISSUES

There are many significant issues facing youth and mass media and peace. However, establishing inclusive democracy, which is a precondition for transformation of violence and counter violence to peace, that is positive peace, is of urgency to all irrespective of age. Hence it should be the priority issue of the youth as well.

Establishing Inclusive Democracy

After the royal takeover of executive power since October 4, 2002 by (mis)using Article 127 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990 the Constitution has been mummified. The Council of Ministers, de facto advisors of the King in its real sense, now led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, appears to be "inefficient" to restore law and order situation in the country, stop militarization, initiate peace dialogue with the Maoist, hold elections, solve Maoist insurgency, implement development works, and stop economy to go further downhill. In such a serious crisis situation, both youth and media can and should play a critical role not only to put back the de-railed democracy back in the track but also to make it more inclusive by addressing the issues of women, Dalits, Madhesi, indigenous nationalities, and linguistic and religious groups. Direct participation of youth and generation of public opinion by media in establishing inclusive democracy and positive peace are of urgency to come out of the present crisis. In order to do so, both youth and media should focus on the following activities:

Build alliance for People’s Movement to establish inclusive democracy

In the post October 4th situation, it is by now clear that people are not really sovereign, army is not under the control of elected people, executive power is not with the elected representatives of the Nepalese people and the King has no desire to be confined within the limits of constitutional monarchy. In order to reclaim sovereignty of people in its real sense of the term, army should be under the control of elected representatives of the people. The existing polarization of triangular political forces, namely, the Maoist insurgents, the political parties under the parliamentary from of government and the King, all political parties should form an alliance among themselves and also with different civil society organizations and also with the Maoist insurgents to form a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Constituent assembly

‘Constituent assembly,’ according to Canada at the Forks Workshop reports, is a "group of citizens/individual stakeholders gathered together to discuss general issues" with a purpose "to present the public will – or the people’s mandate of governance (i.e. on the constitution)." The overall objective of a constituent assembly is "to generate a set of propositions (that represent the mass public’s view point) and to expose them to a nation-wide referendum." Clearly, youths are the prime stakeholders and media is the prime agent of public opinion formation.

Given the mummified state of the Constitution and failure of political parties to strengthen and/or save democracy in the last twelve years by amending the Constitution, it is now evident that ‘normal politics’ and ‘normal governance’ has failed to make constitutional changes. ‘Normal politics’ is in frozen state because restoration of the House of Representatives is nowhere in sight, political parties has been skirted off or ignored by the King, and undemocratic constitutional changes are not acceptable, on the one hand, and on the other, Maoist insurgency ahs been intensifying, the main viable option left for reclaiming democracy, restoring peace, and getting out of the present crisis is a "revolutionary transformation" through constituent assembly. As we have lost other opportunities and cheaper and quicker options in the past, constituent assembly may appear to be expensive and little time consuming but given the bleak scenario of the future, skirting off the idea of constituent assembly may prove to be terribly costly and unbearable.

Concerning the mechanisms for selection of the delegates for constituent assembly, nomination and random selection of individuals should be ruled out. The debate should be focused on the solution found through tier system. One of the necessary tiers is representation of different caste, ethnic, language, religious, gender and regional groups. Other civil society organizations and political parties and independent elections could be other tiers. All delegates should reflect group interests. The delegates of the constituent assembly should travel in all parts of the country to have a face-to-face interaction between the citizens. Mass media should play a key role in disseminating information coming out from such meetings. The minimum time frame of the constituent assembly should be one year but not more than two years. Decision in Constituent assembly should be by two-thirds majority. The Constituent Assembly may come up with a set of alternative propositions to be ratified by the Nepalese people through referendum. The Nepalese people should ratify the finalized Constitution through referendum.

There should be no conditionality for constituent assembly and the results should be binding to all, the Maoist insurgents, political parties, the King, civil society and all the citizens. If the final out come is for multi-party politic system, the King and the Maoist insurgents also should abide with it and if it is otherwise, political parties also should abide with the decision. Similarly, if the result is for People’s Republic as proposed by the Maoist insurgents, all political parties, the King, civil society and the Nepalese citizens should abide with it and if other wise, the Maoist insurgents also should abide it. Further, if the result is for the direct leadership of the King, the Maoist insurgents, political parties, civil society and the citizens should abide with it and if other wise, the King should abide it. Once the issues are settled, the losers should be allowed to use to expand their ideas and gain support of the people in a peaceful way and periodic referendum may be used to express the will of the people for change or status quo.

Demolish leadership of "virtual dead" generation and Pseudo Youth

Nepal is ruled by the "adults" and "youth," who in fact are virtually dead generation" given the fact that the life expectancy in Nepal is below 6o years. Political parties and leaders talk about transfer of leadership from "old" to "young" generation, but these "young" leaders are no lesser than fifty years. The late "youth" and the real "youth" have always been used by this "virtually dead" generation as "jhole karyakarta" or followers. It is now high time that real youth and late youth claim their space for leadership by displacing the leaders belonging to "virtual dead" generation and pseudo youth.

Conclusion

Both media and youth need to be vigilant not to let Nepal experience again any form of absolute monarchy or initiation of a military rule or foreign intervention/invasion. Also, both should strive for not only peace but positive peace in Nepal. Both media and youth could and should play a significant role to re-write constitution by a constituent assembly.(Concluded)

Mission of Journalism: Democracy and Peace

Hiranya Lal Shrestha

Nepal has been going through what is known as the ‘people’s war’ launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) since February 1996. About 9,000 people have lost their lives owing to the conflict between the government and the Maoists. Most of the victims are innocent civilians. After the king started to rule the country through nominated prime ministers and the council of ministers after dissolution of the parliament and elected government from October 4, 2003, conflict has increased between the King and the parliamentarian parties also. The insurgents have broken ceasefire and both sides have intensified military activities. In the recent battles in Bhojpur and Myagdi, the insurgents have used new weapons including AK- 47 rifles and other heavy weapons. There are bomb explosions and killings even in the capital and other cities in different parts of the country. Frequent bandhs and blockades added hardship to the commoners. The humanitarian laws and human rights have been systematically violated. Women and children have fallen worst victims of the conflict. The ratio of the internal displacement is increasing. Murder, kidnapping and detention of journalists by the government and the insurgents are growing. The Nepalese people want peace and settlement of the armed conflict through social- economic transformation. They want to build peace instead of the culture of guns. In this process, media can play vital role, because an aware and vibrant journalism can multiply the strength of the peace campaign.

In the context of present day Nepal, the only mission of journalists is to create favorable people’s opinion for a durable peace by helping bring about ceasefire and effecting a social transformation through dialogue and consensus. It is to create people’s pressure against the option of military solution. The preamble of the constitution of the UNESCO stipulates: " Since wars begin in the minds of men that, the defenses of peace must be constructed." The journalists, therefore, must nurture the culture of peace based on humanitarian laws and human rights instead of glorification of war.

The Clause 8 of the Code of Conduct for Journalists 2060 drafted by the Press Council in consultation with the Nepal Journalist Federation stipulates: "Violence, terror and crimes should not be encouraged. The news, ideas, photographs and scenes of war should not be presented in a way the destruction, violence and crimes are provoked." Similarly, the clause 9 of the statute says: "The gruesome pictures likely to provoke hatred and incite passion should not be published. Pictures showing badly mutilated bodies should not be published in an irrelevant, obscene and provocative manner." These clauses direct journalists to stand against violence and murder and to show that the mission of the journalists is peace.

Although democracy was formally re-established in 1990, no socio-economic transformation could be brought in the country. No significant change was brought in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal status of the country. The status of the common people, specially those of the women, indigenous people, dalits, exploited and the oppressed remained unchanged. The gender discrimination too, remained intact. The people of remote areas and the Terai remained in the sideline. Banking on these contradictions, the CPN (Maoist) launched a revolt under the attractive slogans of radical change. The rulers, in turn, took up the path of suppression instead of going in for political way-out and socio-economic transformation. Despite being a least developed country, Nepal is turning into a market for weapons. The state is openly acquiring weapons, training and logistics from outside. The insurgents, too, have been bringing in weapons clandestinely from the money they have accumulated by looting banks and extortion from the people. The possibility of Nepal receding to the status of a "failed state" has started to loom larger. Instead of forging understanding and unity to bring the insurgents to negotiating table, the constitutional forces are engaging themselves in the cold war pushing the chances of peace farther away. This has worried the common people and the civic society which are creating popular pressure for the fresh ceasefire and peace negotiation. The lust for power and the culture of violence cannot be challenged until an effective peace movement is built at the people’s level. The media people should play a role of vanguard in this peace movement. It is necessary to stand for freedom, equality, democracy, justice and all-round prosperity to build the culture of peace. All three political forces should be able to move towards dialogue accepting mutual co-existence.

We should be alert against the schemes of vested external powers ‘to fish in troubled waters’ and expand their grips in Nepal. Realizing sensitive geopolitical location of Nepal in between two big competing neighbors, India and China, we should not allow interference of any external powers who have strategic interest in Nepal. Rather, we should prefer UN’s role in peace keeping and peace-building in Nepal. So we welcome and appreciate UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recent appeal asking the government and the Maoists to immediately bring the military operation to halt and resume the peace process with the participation of all parties and the civic society. All political parties including the CPN(Maoist) have expressed consent for possible UN role in peace process in Nepal. It is HMGN’s turn to appreciate and explore the prospect of UN assistance in peace process as facilitator and mediator. Since Nepal has been helping the UN to establish peace in various parts of the world, it is the responsibility of the UN to help Nepal acquire peace by resolving conflict. As Nepal is one of the members of the UN, it is natural for it to try to save a member country from becoming a failed state. The Nepalese media have, in fact, accepted the UN’s role in peace building by highly appreciating the appeal of the General Secretary of the UN. Nepal wants to take advantage from the rich experience of the UN in peace keeping.

The mission of Nepalese media at this critical juncture is to stop militarization and encourage dialogue, consensus and national reconciliation. It should be realized that durable peace can be established only if the society can be transformed through forward looking reforms instead of going in for retrogression and status quo. Peace in absolute term, therefore, is not feasible.

It should always be linked with freedom, equality, justice and democracy. Journalists should stand firmly to say ‘No’ to the cult of violence. There should not be dictation of weapons; reasoning must prevail. We can enjoy freedom of press only in peaceful and democratic atmosphere. Free press should stand as a defender of peace and democracy.

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