This is good news. The lethargy is vanishing.
I was real impressed with the discipline of the mob. They did not try to cross police lines. And they stayed away from restricted areas. That exhibits organization. Demonstrations need to be non-violent. Vandalism can not be allowed to be part of it. Organizers should take care.
The king's mention of his meeting with Manmohan Singh as a reason behind his lifting the emergency is a sign the guy is looking to save face. That should be facilitated. The idea should not be to run his nose into the ground.
But for now he has the upper hand. The ball is in his court. He needs to lift the thing for real.
Another alarming thing is the lack of dialogue among the political parties. The one word mantra of democracy might not be enough.
I also read Prachanda's response to Baburam's "letter bomb." It is in Nepali. The difference between the two is real. But they talk of a central office, and meeting in the "hall," and talking over "tea." I get the impression they are not in the forest somewhere. They are in some safehouse in some urban/semiurban setting. Prachanda seems to be splitting threads. Prachanda seems to feel the Maoists are about to get into power and so he should consolidate leadership under him. How farcical. The Maoists are nowhere close to getting into power.
The RNA publicized the "split" between the two immediately after it happened. How did they come to find out? Do they know the physical location of Prachanda? Is capturing him not a RNA goal?
In The News
- 10,000 take to streets in protest over Nepal's king Scotsman, UK ... the biggest demonstrations since King Gyanendra seized power .... marchers avoided the city centre where demonstrations are still banned...... "Our security forces have been successful in controlling the insurgency in just three months and people are feeling secure," said the information minister, Tanka Dhakal, on state radio....... several student activists - between three and five, according to differing reports - were shot and wounded by soldiers during a meeting in Mahendranagar ..... The king has double standards. He does one thing inside the country and there is another face he shows to foreigners...... many in Kathmandu approve of the greater order that the king’s rule has brought to the city
- Nepal parties deride lifting of emergency Hindu .... Some 15,000 trade union activists and labourers marched ..... Organised by five federations, including Nepal Trade Union Congress affiliated to the Nepali Congress and General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions, the march also drew activists from India, Japan, Belgium and Sweden...... Girija Prasad Koirala said the impact of emergency was not reduced even after its withdrawal. "So in fact, there is no change in the situation."
- Leaders demand full restoration of civil rights, press freedom Zee News .....
- Nepal-China bus flagged off Times of India, India .... scheduled to cover the 1,044 km distance in three days ..... mostly Nepalese businessmen and sightseers and some Chinese journalists. ....... With the completion of the China-Lhasa railway, the bus service will receive a further boost as Nepal's prospect as a transit route for trade between India and China will increase. ..... the agreement for direct bus services between key metros in India and Nepal has failed to move forward. Nepalese transport operators, fearing uneven competition from India, are said to have pressured the government into keeping the pact on ice.
- Nepal rebels admit leaders rift BBC News, UK ....Prachanda has said that he had serious differences with Baburam Bhattarai ..... in an e-mail statement ...... Bhattarai had been stripped of key positions he held in the party ...... a rift between him and Prachanda - apparently over Mr Bhattarai's wish to resume peace talks ...... Prachanda said in a statement that Mr Bhattarai was carrying out his responsibilities assigned by the party....... the personality clash between the two leaders had never been a secret, but this is the first time that their differences have been made public ......
- Four student leaders injured in Nepal shootout Hindu ..... suspected Maoists killed the district chief of a political monitoring committee established by King Gyanendra ..... Srivastab was heading one of the 69 district "monitoring committees" appointed by Gyanendra to observe political activities including those of the Maoists and report back to the King and the home ministry ...... Nara Bahadur Dhami, Central member of the All Nepal National Free Students Union (ANNFSU) affiliated to Nepal Communist Party-UML; Bachan Bahadur Singh, ANNFSU Kanchanpur district president and two other student leaders ......
- Nepal political party leaders to meet PM Zee News, India ...... Dubbing as a "mere eyewash" King Gyanendra's decision to lift emergency, Nepali political parties yesterday said the move was aimed at "misleading" the world and to receive military aid from India..... Shekhar Koirala of Nepali Congress, Rajendra Mahto of Sadbhavna Party, Pradeep Giri of Democratic Nepali Congress and Raja Bhattarai of United Nepal. ...... The parties plan to test the king by taking out rallies to assess whether emergency has been lifted in the real term. ...... "The king has the autocratic tendency and was getting dangerous by the day"
- India welcomes Nepal King's move, wants other measures also Press Trust of India
- VIEW: New Delhi must continue to engage the monarch Times of India, India ..... care must be taken not to overreact ..... constructive engagement .... His assurances to both external affairs minister Natwar Singh and prime minister Manmohan Singh at Bandung suggest that he knows he cannot go it alone. His conciliatory statements to the Indians must be seen as a sign that he is ready to make concessions ...... keeping channels open with the king. The monarch probably realises that he has a weak hand. The king's crackdown on political leaders is probably little more than an attempt to demonstrate who is in charge. But he isn't, not really.
- Protesters March Against Katmandu King Guardian Unlimited ..... protests were watched by people from homes and rooftops..... Although the constitution limits emergency rule to three months - a period expiring Sunday - the king had been widely expected to extend it.
- Update On Gagan Thapa's Situation United We Blog ..... at least 22 plainclothes policemen surrounded the building and arrested all three leaders. Who would have leaked their whereabouts to the police? “Perhaps someone from within Nepal Student Union?” a relative of one of the three told me....... They are in Shorakhutte Ward Police Station, not far from where they are arrested. That station is particularly famous for detaining thieves, pickpockets and other perpetrators. That’s not the place for political detainees...... Gagan has been kept in different room from other two, in the female ward of the station. ..... All three have been barred from seeing even their relatives. Gagan’s cousin went to the station with food. He wasn’t allowed to see uncle...... Photographers spotted him addressing a few corner meetings in New Baneshwor area recently. A man always seen in neat and tidy outfit, he has sported beard after Feb 1.
- Army Offensive In Rolpa United We Blog ..... “Army personnel in large numbers are present in almost all villages of Rolpa” ...... “All Maoists have fled Rolpa. The whole district is now under Army’s control.” ..... Journalists accompanied an army team in Thawang on Sunday and saw a deserted village..... Maoists fled the village “4 or 5 days before army arrived here.”
- Review Of Mahendra Lawoti's Book INSN ..... palace justified the coup by reading out articles from the 1990 constitution. It was the last nail in the coffin for a document that had failed the test of genuine democratic transformation despite 15 years in existence. Scrapping the 1990 constitution is one of the main recommendations of this laboriously researched book by Professor Mahendra Lawoti..... Lawoti refutes claims that the Maoists subsumed potential ethnic insurgencies. They accommodated them for the time being..... Madhesi dalits face double discrimination - first as Madhesi and second as untouchables. Exclusion of 85% of the population is occurring even in such supposedly progressive realms as education, media and human-rights circles....... The constitution invests excessive power in the hands of the executive (cabinet) and keeps parliament weak. Opposition parties have no say whatsoever in the polity. The judiciary, the election commission and the anti-corruption agency are dependent on the cabinet for budget and personnel. Local governments are toothless to address citizens’ needs, creating fertile ground for Maoist capture of rural areas....... Lawoti prefers “ethnic federalism” to regional federalism ...... In the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Spain, federalism mellowed militant tides...... Special entitlements are needed for sub-group advancement, especially dalits and women who would get left behind even after ethnic federalism were instituted..... affirmative-action and quota-reservation policies ..... extending more rights to more Nepalese will elevate the “strength, capability and legitimacy of the state” ..... an assertive and ambitious ruler exercising extra-constitutional power, hardly an uncommon occurrence in fledgling third world democracies ....... the remarkable degree of exclusion of the vast majority of Nepal’s population ..... the reluctance of various monarchs - from Tribuvan to Gyanendra - to open out spaces for participation. ..... the singular inability of the various political parties - of all ideological shades - to make both themselves and the polity more inclusive....... When a few upper caste hill groups exercise hegemony over all institutions - legislative, executive, judicial - as also control most civil society organisations, a drift towards violent, extra-parliamentarism is to be expected. ...... an assertive monarchy as the source of Nepal’s troubles ...... Lawoti does not even rule out the possibility of secession...... a unitary state, exclusionary institutions, and fragile parliamentary norms and practices ...... . like any large movement, divided in factions and tendencies, each advancing somewhat different political projects .....
- Nepal Lifts House Arrest for 2 Communists Guardian Unlimited, UK .... Police were removed from their houses early Monday morning. While under house arrest for three months, they were not allowed to meet with any one, and allowed to read only government-run newspapers and watch government television station.
- Communist leader freed in Nepal BBC News ...... Madhav Kumar Nepal
- COUNTERVIEW: India must take a tough stand now Times of India, India .... There's talk that former prime minister G P Koirala may be the next to return to prison. Whatever the king's motivation or compulsions, he has shown that he cannot be trusted....... If the king shows no sign of relenting, India should stop pleading and play a more proactive role in saving Nepal from the king's grip.
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
