There are three players, and I have heard them all. The king wants to retain the monarchy, the Maoists want a progressive constitution, and the political parties want democracy. If the king were to do a few things, I will modify the proposed constitution, and make room for the monarchy.
Basically the king has to organize a referendum. The people get to vote if or not they will adopt this constitution. That is all.
In return I promise to organize an online think tank. Between this constitution and the think tank, Nepal will have double digit economic growth rates, year in and year out, for 30 years. Both China and India will come under intense pressure to imitate this constitution. And that will see the dawn of The Asian Century.
On another note, this king got crowned at age 4, and then they took the crown away. At some level he never got over it. He has been playing catch-up ever since he got the crown. He promised a Constituent Assembly without meaning to, like Tribhuvan. Mahendra gave the country 30 years of Panchayat, this king gave three years and counting. Mahendra hired Bishta and Giri, Birendra hired Thapa and Chand, Gyanendra hired them all. This is Paramendra Bhagat, The Sigmund Freud talking. But now he has done it all. Now he can go to becoming a Constitutional Monarch. Time to imitate Birendra of the 1990s.
But first, he has to lift the emergency for real. All fundamental rights need to be restored immediately. He is not fooling anyone with his gimmick. He is only hurting himself.
My comment on his "meticulously planned royal coup:" I will bet you a hundred dollars the guy is a fan of the Godfather movies. There is this scene where Michael Corleone is being godfather to his sister's children, and at the same time his men are finishing off his rival dons. That is what he tried to imitate during his televised speech.
Article 5: The Monarchy
The monarch is the guardian of the constitution. The first born, son or daughter, is heir to the throne. The monarch's immediate family - defined as parent(s), wife, siblings and their children, children, and grandchildren, and above the law - is to get annual allowances from the state at 1991 levels. The amount may not be reduced by the parliament. The monarch may request the parliament increases to the allowance through the Prime Minister at any time. Such allowances are not to be taxed, although businesses owned by members of the said family will be subject to taxation and the law.
It is a state goal to open up enough holdings of the royal family with consent from the monarch to tourists so as to offset the state expenditure on the monarchy through revenue from tourism.
The monarch will appoint a Prince/Princess for each state, to be called Prince/Princess of Purbanchal/Madhyamanchal/Paschimanchal from among the members of the royal family. He may also choose to appoint members that might have married into the family. Such appointments may be rescinded by the monarch at any time. The title comes with allowances from the state.
Members of the royal family may marry individuals of their choice, not necessarily from certain families, or from within the country.
The monarch will give the annual State Of The Kingdom address, the speech to be crafted by the Prime Minister.
The monarchy may be abolished with a 90% vote in the national parliament.
In The News
- Nepal king retains sweeping powers NDTV.com, India ..... there are still no significant signs of change on the streets of the capital ...... Demonstrations, rallies and public meetings are still not allowed while media censorship and the ban on Indian news channels continues. So far, no political prisoners have been released...... A government decree on Saturday banned demonstrations in Kathmandu, where the Army still controls the streets...... civil liberties are yet to be restored. There is no access to mobile phone services...... Political parties remain defunct ...... In the same announcement in which he lifted the emergency, he also declared that he will be keeping all the major powers
- Nepal's shrewd, smooth operator
BBC News .... his meticulously planned royal coup ..... his political and diplomatic manoeuvring, executed with total confidence, shrewdness and sharpness...... "they will say what they want and I will do what I want"...... the king did not want to be seen as worried by Delhi's reaction..... the lifting of the emergency will not affect press censorship, imposed through separate legislation introduced after the royal takeover....... those currently in detention will not be released if they were arrested under the Public Security Act....... no demonstrations, public meetings and picketing would be allowed in several places within the Kathmandu valley...... the all-powerful Royal Commission for Corruption Control is there to stay..... - prince Paras had a hand in lifting Nepal emergency
Hindustan Times Paras, now 30, was then believed to have hit and killed a popular singer with his car, alleged to have hit a policeman with the butt of a gun, and been involved in several drunken brawls, besides acquiring a reputation as a womaniser. ...... There was a time when most Nepalese saw him as a trigger-happy drinker...... . He is married to Himani Singh who belongs to a princely family in Rajasthan...... King also issued an order as per Article 127 of the Constitution to give continuation to the powerful Royal Commission for Corruption Control..... - India welcomes lifting of Nepal emergency Deccan Herald, India ..... political processes should be restored, political prisoners should be released, emergency should be lifted and Indian channels should be allowed to be aired and processes should be started which culminate in multi-party elections. This is the first step .....
- India welcomes Nepal King's move
Deccan Herald ..... Shekhar Koirala of Nepali Congress said one has to "wait and watch" as there was no word on ending restrictions like release of all political detenues, press censorship and resumption of mobile phone services. ......Rajender Mahato of Nepali Sadbhavna party termed the decision as "meaningless" and a "mere show" under international pressure. It is a welcome first step, says India Hindu the killing of 655 persons from February 1 to April 30.Lifting of emergency an eyewash: Nepali leaders Hindustan Times Rajendra Mahato of Nepal Sadbhavana Party smelt a "devious design" in what he termed a "ruse to hoodwink the international community." ...... "Lifting of emergency is not the same as the restoration of democracy," he maintained, while pointing to the hundreds of political leaders and human rights activists still languishing in jails...... appealed to the international community "to find the hard truth behind the surface." ..... "All political parties will now come together on the same platform to revive democratic institutions so as to create a new constitution under which people will be supreme," said Mahato.PM terms lifting of emergency in Nepal as 'positive' Hindu, India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, today termed as a "positive step" the lifting of Emergency - Protests banned in Nepal's capital Xinhua, China the notice of the restriction was made public according to the Local Administration Act
- King Bows To Pressure, Lifts Emergency Times Of India Reacting to mounting international pressure ...... and starved of military supplies ...... "The emergency invoked under Article 115 (11) of the Constitution has been lifted with immediate effect." ..... The current spell of emergency was in force until Sunday and could have been extended..... Since there is no functioning Parliament in Nepal at the moment, speculation was rife that the king would ..extend it through a royal proclamation after the passage of 90 days.... India .. once bitten by the King’s ambush tactics ...... Natwar Singh too prodded the king to take more steps towards democracy. ..... the king invoked Manmohan Singh in his announcement...... there has been no diminishing of the king’s own power.
- Beyond Lifting The State Of Emergency by Dinesh Prasain INSN .... the overall context of unconstitutional and unaccountable rule under a dictatorial monarchy persists ... could use such cosmetic changes to further entrench his authoritarian grip ...... over 3000 pro-democracy supporters were arrested in the first two-and-a-half months after the coup. As of end of April, over 800 of them were still in prison ..... possibly torturing and disappearing the student leaders ..... innocent civilians are caught ever more between a “rock and a hard place” ...... these three months the Royal Nepal Army killed 530 people while the Maoists killed 125. ..... “Majority of the persons killed during the emergency are innocent civilians who were deliberately executed both by the RNA and the Maoists” ...... (a) the king needs to unequivocally handover power to the parliament and / or the all-party government as demanded in consensus by the major parliamentary political parties, (b) the new government and /or parliament needs to make changes in the constitution to scrap royal prerogatives and to bring the army fully under the control of democratic civilian government, (c) the government needs to draw up and implement a strategy (agenda and roadmap) for bringing the rebels into the democratic mainstream through political negotiations, and (d) the negotiated political settlement needs to include a plan which will allow the sovereign people to peacefully renegotiate their aspirations for a more democratic, inclusive, just and accountable state by participating in a free and fair election to improve the 1990 constitution........ US has provided nearly $22 million in military aid to the RNA since 2002 ..... The insurgency spread to nearly all the 75 districts of Nepal after October 2002 when the king started dismantling the constitution ...... Gross and systematic human rights violations by the RNA have been documented by national and international human rights organizations, and conflict experts have pointed out that many victims and their families have flocked to the Maoists to seek revenge....... has disregarded international law ...... Military aid to the RNA should be stopped until it is fully under the control of a democratic civilian government and respects human rights and humanitarian laws. Apart from critical humanitarian aid, all other development aid to Nepal needs to be suspended until a democratic government is in place....... assumed direct power “to fight terrorism and to strengthen democracy”. Ironically, the king started terrorizing the people and dismantling the democratic process ....... While the right to peaceful assembly was announced suspended, the royalist vigilantes were allowed to take out rallies in Kathmandu with police escorts, but pro-democracy activists, including students, who organized spontaneous protest demonstrations were arrested, detained and tortured........ Lack of institutionalized accountability mechanisms logically led to increasing human rights violations by the state security forces, with de facto guarantee of impunity to the perpetrators; the RNA is accountable to the king, who feels unaccountable to anybody else....... Maoists gained much more military strength and Nepal became unstable in an unprecedented way after the army was mobilized in November 2001, and even more so after the king started ruling directly by dismantling the constitution from October 2002. After these developments, the Maoist influence spread to almost all the 75 districts of Nepal, compared to their influence in about two dozen districts before 2001....... Maoists have made every attempt to silence dissent within their areas of influence, conscripted children into their army, systematically intimidated, tortured and publicly executed their opponents, destroyed development infrastructure and forcefully and frequently closed highways, schools and markets...... ideological belief in the primacy of violence as a means of political change and near-total intolerance of dissent (also within their own party as indicated by the recent captivity of the dissenting number two leader Baburam Bhattarai by the armed guard of the Maoist supremo Prachanda) ...... The king’s tactics are no different than those of the Maoists. He has used the pretext of the Maoist threat to usurp complete power and wealth for himself and the coterie around him. The king talks peace but blocks every effort to settle the conflict through negotiations; a militarized state and society are much more beneficial to him than peace within a democratic framework........ both claim that they need absolute power and violence to suppress the violence of the other side ....... Emergency was lifted towards the end of April, but the overall climate of an illegitimate, unaccountable and dictatorial regime, which does not respect the concept of rule of law persists...... private media denied access to government advertisements and licenses to operate ...... Over 2000 journalists have been rendered jobless .... one of the most popular democratic figure in Nepal, Gagan Thapa ...... the police disrupted the funeral of a respected freedom fighter ...... king is institutionalizing his authoritarian regime through the appointment of ultra-right henchmen as regional and zonal commissioners (with the appointment of district commissioners believed to be on the pipeline) ...... repressive laws are being drafted, including a law to seriously curb the freedom of the press ...... one anti-terrorism ordinance, and a public security act ...... Opposition figures risk confiscation of their property ..... In 2003 and 2004, the Nepali state “disappeared” more people than any other country in the world. ....... The state can label anybody as being a terrorist or supporting terrorism, and then arrest, detain or even kill them with impunity....... immensely benefiting the warlords, both on the side of the Maoists and the royal-military establishment ..... Gyanendra “welcomed” the activities of the lynch mobs in Kapilbastu ...... The RNA has set up and armed para-military known as Village Defense Committees in the southern parts of Nepal since November 2003....... they instigated and led a mob of the villagers which went berserk, indiscriminately lynching, beating, and raping other villagers in 21 villages. This mob violence lasted for several days, and was backed-up and even actively encouraged by the security forces and the government ministers ...... The leader of the vigilante group, a gangster wanted for over a dozen murder cases in Nepal and India, is safe....... a 40 year old resident in Nawalparasi, Ram Kishore Chamar, was alleged by the Village Defense Committee as not supporting them. On March 26, 2005, Committee members chopped off his right hand, roasted it on fire, made him to eat it, and then shot him dead...... vigilante violence and counter-violence could soon be the order of the day across Nepal ...... a section of the international community played into the hands of the extreme right and extreme left: they were (some still are) among the most enthusiastic in blaming the democratic political parties for their inability to clear in ten years the mess created by centuries of the unjust social structures and processes, entrenched further by over two-centuries of a rent-seeking state controlled by the palace and a few families around it....... alternative to an imperfect democracy is more democracy, not authoritarianism ..... the king is compulsively anti-democratic ..... king benefits, politically and economically, from a protracted armed conflict .... powerful yet insensitive international bureaucrats ...... UN is going to send 50 human rights monitors to Nepal ...... collect evidence comprehensively so that it can ultimately be used by any war crimes tribunal that may be set up in the future ..... “revolutionary” Maoists or “reactionary” royalists ..... “pro-peace” by supporting the king or “pro-terrorism” by not supporting him ..... In the five elections, two local and three general, held since 1990, the five parliamentary political parties now launching a joint movement for democracy, have consistently secured over 85 percent of the votes....... combined support for the authoritarian system, as proposed by the Maoists and the king, was only 10 percent ..... more inclusive and internally democratic...... different social groups to democratically renegotiate their relations to each other and to the state by writing a new constitution ...... Launch an international campaign for the establishment of war crimes tribunals to prosecute those responsible for gross violation of human rights in Nepal - this may ultimately be the most effective way to deter king Gyanendra and the Maoist leader Prachanda
