Three Years: Too Long A Wait

The king keeps saying he needs three years to restore democracy, to put down the Maoists. The only people he has gone after really since his takeover are the democrats, as if the Maoists have given him a good excuse to do something he has wanted to do all along.

Three years for what? To keep clamping down the people? To keep up with the human rights abuses? To keep gagging the press? More not less democracy is the answer to the Maoist threat. After all, is not the "Maoist threat" that they might take over, declare a communist republic, and take away all fundamental rights?

The king should just face the reality that a Constituent Assembly is the only way out and act in ways that will make many parties want to campaign for a continued monarchy within such an Assembly.

And a question to Americans: You got rid of your King G, G for George, why can't you see a Nepal without its King G?

• Nepalese king pleads for foreign help Independent Online, South Africa ....dozens of heavily armed guerrillas stormed a local station of state-owned television in Kohalpur, 500km west of Kathmandu, and ransacked the office as well as the studios.....
  
• Global Imperialist Designs The Royal Coup in Nepal CounterPunch, CA The immediate internal options are perfectly clear ­ the continuity of a democratic delusion under Monarchy or a full-fledged democratic republic with Maoists being on the negotiating table...... The Indians and others have consistently shown their preference for monarchy with a democratic tinge....... they prefer a democratic façade rather than a full-fledged parliamentary democracy in Nepal...... finding a suitable internal power bloc with which they can negotiate, and their interest to sustain a particular hierarchical relationship with Nepal..... forces the foreign capital ­ Indian and others - to negotiate with rentier interests in Nepal, whose main motive is to capitalise on their role as intermediaries, on their capacity to rent out the local market and resources ..... their preference is for a monarch that symbolises a grand negotiator. But on the other hand, the grand rentier can create grand hurdles to gain grand favours, too. Hence, a limited 'democracy' would provide a safety valve ..... leads to the foreign preference for a façade of democracy in Nepal under monarchy ..... It is not that the Nepali rentiers and political elite will ever shift their allegiance, but the continuous presence of China definitely allows them to use this fact to gain favours from the only organized imperialist coalition present in the region ­ the Indo-US Imperialism...... Some "security" intellectuals have started proposing that India must not insist on any immediate restoration of democracy...... Till recently, the trick of calling the Maoist revolutionaries Chinese agents (or even Pakistani/ISI agents) and faking evidences to prove this ..... seven countries account "for over four fifths of cumulative FDI [in Nepal]. India alone accounted for one third [owning 35% of the enterprises with FDI and 35.8% share in the total FDI], followed by the United States and then China." ..... considering its need for a political stability in Nepal to derive sustainable economic gains from there, and thwart any rival interest from evolving ..... the amount of political support for the Nepali "democrats", at least within the ranks and leadership of the parliamentary left ..... They might help in stopping the evolution of a united front of the democrats and the Maoist peasant revolutionaries in Nepal, and hence by effect not allowing the full-fledged republic to come up. .....
  
• King says he'll restore democracy in Nepal International Herald Tribune, France .....urged Maoist rebels to join peace talks and shrugged off the suspension of military aid by India and Britain ..... pleaded for international support to crush the Maoist revolt ..... "We want our friends to help us by word and by deed. If that is not the agenda they want to go along with, then they should tell us what their agenda is. ....."You have given me something that is badly infested. ....."They must say what they must say," he said, "and we must do what we must do." ..... The rebels, meanwhile, have blockaded roads to disrupt food and fuel supplies since the takeover. They have focused on the 200-kilometer, or 125-mile, highway that connects Katmandu to the country's interior and leads to India. ..... On Friday, traffic piled up at checkpoints around the country, waiting for security forces to escort civilian convoys.......
  
• Nepal: Responding to the Royal Coup Reuters AlertNet ..... the immediate policy steps needed to pull Nepal back from the brink. A unified international response is critical, and the best mechanism for that would be a contact group comprising key countries and organisations involved in Nepal: India, the U.S., the UK and the UN. "If the world simply rolls over and accepts this coup, the chances of greater violence and even a Maoist victory will only increase", says Crisis Group President Gareth Evans. "This is not the time for 'wait and see'. Nepal needs immediate, co-ordinated international action"....... a politically broad-based effort to address not only the insurgency but also the underlying issues that have fuelled it. ..... suspending all direct bilateral and multilateral budgetary support to the government; and initiating a review of all current development assistance programs and preparing plans for their phased suspension and withdrawal...... further measures, including complete suspension of all aid; sanctions; a ban on Nepalese troops from their lucrative involvement in UN peacekeeping operations; and encouraging the UN Security Council to investigate and prosecute both government and Maoist war crimes suspects.
  
• Nepal stops intelligentsia from flying abroad Hindustan Times ..... includes about 200 people...... Gurung, a professor at the prestigious university as well as general secretary of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, was flying to India for the regional preparatory meeting of the fourth conference of the Permanent Forum of the UN on Indigenous Nationalities in Shillong from Friday to Sunday...... include former Supreme Court judge Laxman Arryal, who is also one of the drafters of Nepal's current constitution, and former Deputy Speaker of Parliament Chitralekha Yadav..... Lokraj Baral, political scientist and former ambassador to India, was arrested while returning from India. The 70-year-old who suffers from heart problems, is still in detention.
  
• Ties with Nepal to receive high priority: Kalam Sify, India President A P J Abdul Kalam told a joint sitting of Parliament.
• US asked to freeze military aid to Nepal Hindustan Times, India .....King's power grab, which has reportedly led to increasing human rights abuses. ..... T Kumar, the US-based advocacy director for Amnesty International, told a congressional human rights forum in Washington ..... The United States, which has branded the Nepalese Maoist rebels as terrorists .....
  
• Nepali King considers peace as Nepal's prime agenda Xinhua
• The Calculus Of Failure Outlookindia.com