Major Student Protests

This can be seen as the first stepping stone into the movement. These acts of repression will fuel the movement.

The regime seems to be studying its administrative options should the movement escalate, instead of seeking political reconciliation. The democrats have to be realistic and see this regime for what it is. These are people who stand to be thrown into irrelevance once democracy takes over. And so they will postpone the inevitable the best they can.

A classic tussle between autocracy and democracy is on its way.

In The News

• At least 40 injured after Nepal protest Boston Globe, United States
• Students protest in Nepal, dozens injured Hindustan Times Police used batons .... About four police were also injured
  
• Students hurt in Nepal street protest Reuters AlertNet, UK police broke up a protest staged to demand the release of student union leaders arrested for opposing a government order to print photographs of the king in text books...... "It was like a battlefield. Some of the students were profusely bleeding after police beat them," Kathmandu taxi driver Bhagawan Chhetri said. "The students then threw stones at cars before being chased away by police." .... Pro-democracy activists and students regularly protest in Nepal
• At least 40 injured after Nepal protest San Jose Mercury News, United States
• At Least 40 Injured After Nepal Protest Guardian Unlimited, UK Police broke up a demonstration Tuesday in Nepal's capital by hundreds of students.... In a separate rally later in the day, about 2,000 political leaders and supporters demonstrated ..... About 500 students blocked a key street Tuesday when police charged at them with batons. The students retaliated by throwing stones....Student groups, political parties and journalists have held a series of protests
• At Least 40 Injured After Nepal Protest Los Angeles Times, CA
• At Least 40 Injured After Nepal Protest Gadsden Times (subscription), AL
• Nepal government gags budget criticism IANS
• Nepal government gags budget criticism:- Webindia123, India
• Nepal: Eighteen detainees released under ICRC auspices ICRC (press release), Switzerland
• Sanjay Upadhya: Nepal - The Realignment Race Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand... Niranjan Thapa, a former interior minister who the parties accuse of trying to suppress pro-democracy protests in 1990. (The top bureaucrat under Thapa then, Dan Bahadur Shahi, was appointed interior minister the day after King Gyanendra took over...... Jagat Gauchan, a former martial arts luminary who went on to spend seven years in prison for his role in the attempted murder of a prominent journalist. Two other appointees have been linked to financial scandals........ Tulsi Giri.... has made clear his personal opposition to multiparty politics........ many of the new ministers were until recently prominent members of the kingdom’s leading parties, the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist Leninists (UML)........ Prakash Koirala, the son of Nepal’s first elected prime minister B.P. Koirala ....... Salim Miya Ansari, one of the few Muslim politicians in the world’s only Hindu kingdom, used to be a leading member of the UML...... the prospect of a palace-led realignment of political forces ..... The palace, for its part, must have recognized that bending over backward could not have won over the Nepali Congress and the UML...... October 2002 ..... Unable to recommend a common candidate for the premiership...... What exactly transpired behind the scenes during those few days remains unclear.......... the last legislature – dissolved by Deuba in 2002 exercising his prerogative as an elected premier -- ....... Royal advisers seem to be convinced that the mainstream alliance has shallow roots. For instance, some of the alliance partners have only very reluctantly accepted the demand for the reinstatement of parliament....... Nepali Congress.. has gradually become receptive to the Maoists’ republican agenda ahead of next month’s general convention...... Comprising many western-educated younger Nepalese, the NC(D) ...... whether a true alliance with the Maoists could be envisaged before the rebels lay down their guns........ After 1990, the 400,000 village and district leaders the partyless system cultivated formed the rural and district core of the Nepali Congress and the UML. The pendulum could easily swing the other way........ Considering the flurry of positive statements coming from both sides, a broad working alliance between the mainstream parties and the Maoist rebels could be contemplated. Whether their unity could transcend their deep distrust and suspicions is another matter......... At least 55 of the 74 Nepali Congress members of Nepal’s first elected legislature King Mahendra – father of the present monarch -- dissolved in December 1960 ended up supporting palace-led non-party rule.
• Nepal Maoist rebels hand 18 prisoners to Red Cross Reuters AlertNet, UK The release, which took place in Sindhuli ...... The six soldiers and 12 police, captured in Khotang and Bhojpur districts during clashes on June 19 and 22, were brought to Janakpur

Political And Military Stalemate: Democrats Stand To Tip The Balance

The Monarchists rule the towns and the cities, the Maoists rule the countryside: that is the image being propagated. But that is not how I look at Nepal's political landscape. The truth is there is this major political paralysis in the country: the two extreme ends of the political spectrum have managed to create this eery political and military stalemate.

The democrats are not in power, but are still center stage. The key to the equation lies with the democrats.

The best way to play the game might be for the democrats to tiptoe towards the Maoists to shake the Monarchists, and then tiptoe back a little with the carrot of a cermonial monarchy to make sure the Maoists do not go beyond the idea of a multi party democracy. At least those options have to be kept open. A Maoist party hellbent on going beyond a multi party democracy will guarantee that the monarchy stays on, albeit in a ceremonial form. A king hellbent on not seeing the light will ensure a republic. That flexibility of stance will give the democrats the edge over the two extremes.

And the democrats really enhance the democratic position and leverage by seriously getting down to the work of the movement for democracy. A movement is unlike an election campaign. It is a much larger organism than any political party, and beyond a point it takes a life of its own. A movement boils until an autocratic regime is totally washed out. A movement can be guided at best, it does not get lead.

Should the Monarchists continue with their intransigence, as they might (what exactly will people like Bishta, Giri, Shah and others do after democracy arrives!), the movement will have to boil over. At that point, it will be important for the democrats to keep the intiative within the democratic camp. Only a disarmed Maoist party may be invited into any all party government. Only a demilitarized country can go into a Constituent Assembly.

In The News

• CBI, DEA probe Nepal prince’s drug links News Insight The US FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have sought assistance of the CBI, the Narcotics Control Board and covert agencies to investigate the notorious crown prince of Nepal, Paras, after an American ally in South East Asia tipped off about his rapidly expanding drug network. Paras has been allegedly in the drug business for seven years, but his stakes and that of the Nepalese royal family have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years, alarming the DEA, and panicking the US, and the crown prince is now reported to be operating his network beyond South Asia. In December 2004, the US-friendly South East Asian state began investigating new drug markets in the region, and the trail lead to Nepal, and investigators in the guise of tourists established the link to Paras, who was subsequently invited for a tourism promotion event. During the promotion event, the South East Asian state was confronted with meetings between Paras and local drug lords, who were under surveillance, and the recorded conversations produced iron-clad evidence against Nepal’s crown prince, which was when US agencies were contacted, for independent corroboration US agencies in turn approached Indian investigators about three weeks ago, which had an inkling of Paras’s drug dealings, but a more substantial probe has commenced since.
• UN & Nepal News Insight As we reported yesterday (Intelligence, “UN to take over Nepal, hold polls,” 13 July 2005), the US secretary of state, Condoleezaa Rice, has cleared a plan with the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, for restoring democracy in Nepal without damaging its constitutional monarchy but bringing the Maoist insurgents to peace talks at the same time. The plan for a restoration of democracy in stages, culminating with elections within a year of the UN takeover of administration of the kingdom, was prepared by India, and co-sponsored by the US, the UK, and Belgium....... The UN gets to administer Nepal for one year in which it will implement twenty mega development projects in remote locations of the kingdom, revive police institutions to restore public confidence in them, and hold free and fair internationally monitored elections..... With US agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, implicating his son, Paras, in a multinational drug network, Gyanendra stood a good chance to lose all, as we explained in a previous commentary (“Nepal crisis II,” 7 July 2005)..... The United States had to threaten him on two counts, one to send a multinational force to take over the country..... The second threat was to educate him on various heads of state around the world standing trail for violation of human rights .... The RNA many have never overcome the insurgents entirely, and if that were the case, the Indian Army would have long terminated the militancies in the North East......the peculiarity about insurgency is that it has its own immune system. ..... After 7/ 7, the world has no patience for armed struggles.
• Brazil out, US wants G-4 broken News Insight With Brazil being opposed by its neighbours, Canada and the US, its run for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council looks hopeless, and both Germany and Japan want it out of the G-4, and G-4’s ultimate disbandment, but only India is holding out.
• About Us News Insight .... issues that repress India. ..... corruption, venal politicians, anti-entrepreneur bureaucrats, and a mindset against meritocracy ..... feel guiltless about street children, rat-eaters, riot-victims, men and women who cannot spell their name, or vote-robbing ..... battle the repressors - using truth and moral values as weapons, allied with unbeatable information power, argumentation and analysis....... We count among our readers such eminences as prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani, other members of the cabinet, leader of the Opposition Sonia Gandhi, the Communist stalwart, A.B.Bardhan, industrialists Rattan Tata and Ramesh Chauhan, apart from the Indian and NRI intelligentsia, the Indian middle and business classes, foreign governments, think-tanks, and educational institutions........ non-resident Indians - perhaps the last section of Indians left with the energy, drive, motivation and idealism to retrieve India ......
  
• Denying the UN Plan News Insight Officials at the United Nations in New York and the US state department deny that such a plan exists (Intelligence, "UN to take over Nepal, hold polls," 13 July 2005) We stand by the story. Editor.
• Maoists introduce Janabadi education to counter monarchy News Insight 28 December 2002 .... the Maoists have introduced their own system of education in scores of villages across northern and central parts of Nepal ..... they have even printed their own textbooks and have begun its distribution in large numbers ..... the Nepalese government, in a bid to strengthen its campaign against the Maoists, has ended all its international peacekeeping commitments. The last of the Nepalese forces, the Bir Dal Company, part of United Nations peacekeeping efforts in East Timor returned to the country recently.