This is the first time I am reading news on Tripathy. I guess he is in Delhi with Mahato. I am glad he is not under house arrest like Girija and MaKuNe and others.
- Nepal leaders seek India's support in fight for democracy: New Kerala, India ......political leaders today demanded elections for a constituent assembly in the Himalayan Kingdom and holding of talks to resolve the Maoist menace...... Observing that the reasons behind the Maoist resurgence were political, economic and social, Nepal Sadbhavna Party (A) leader Rajendra Mahto said the insurgency problem could be solved only through talks and not military action........Mahto's colleague Hridayesh Tripathi said "the King did not want to get rid of the Maoist problem but wants to keep it going to get foreign aid." Claiming that King Gyanendra was "inspired" by Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf, he said "the monarch may spring up a new constitution for the Himalayan Kingdom under the garb of development."...... Dictatorship in Nepal would be "bad" for India, said Sujata, the daughter of former Premier Girija Prasad Koirala, who fled her country earlier this week......."We want an elected constituent assembly which should have the powers to decide the future of Nepal," she said adding abolition of monarchy should be the goal of any political movement.
- Former Nepalese PM's life under threat: daughter: New Kerala ....he was being slow-poisoned ..... ....Chitrabahadur Keshi of the Nepalese Communist Party (Jan Morcha) favoured a common front with everyone including the Maoist guerrillas ...
I feared he might go down the Burma path: shun the larger powers, just keep at it. But he is not going for that. Nepal is too dependent on foreign powers for aid. He timed his coup in such a way that he would make an appearance at the SAARC summit a few days later and thus become legitimate. Good thing Manmohan Singh foiled that move. But that reveals the king is greatly susceptible to the trio of India, US and UK, especially India. And India does not really have to think a whole lot about China. Nepal is not China's backyard. Besides, as long as you do not mess with China's grand strategy of rapid economic growth, it really is not adventurous outside its borders.
I am worried about the US posture on the Maoists. I mean, the heck with it. The US dare not repeat its Cold War mistakes in Latin America when it routinely sponsored right wing militias who went on to conduct major, major human rights abuses. The US dare not repeat that in Nepal.
I fear people like (US Ambassador) Moriarty have been projecting their personal readings into Russing communism of the 1930s and Chinese communism of the 1960s onto the Nepali Maoists. It is like me saying, Moriarty, I can't deal with you because you are a segregationist. I mean, that is what white folks were 40 years back. But things change.
The Maoists have to be taken for their word on the Constituent Assembly.
Their ideology is no different than that of the late Madan Bhandari. The so-called Prachanda Path makes ample room for the multi-party framework. A political platform of a Democratic Republic has to be the meeting ground.
As long as the Maoists disarm and participate within a multi-party democratic framework, who cares if they keep dreaming of a socialist utopia a hundred years from now?
And I think they will.
But before the Maoists, all the democratic forces need to come around and present a Common Minimum Program that can be expressed in two words: Democratic Republic. Reaching out to seek common ground with the Maoists comes second.
There might even be room to reach out to the king, but not from a position of weakness. That third phase meeting ground could be another two words: Constituent Assembly. But regardless to say, the king is not even negotiating. He feels he is too strong to cut corners.
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