Bush's War On Terror And King G

King G had been reading too many international news magazines, perhaps watching too much TV. On 2/1 he decided he was going to jump onto the Bush bandwagon. If Musharraf can do it. Well, Bush is in news saying King G might think he is with Bush, but that is not how Bush feels about the situation. The leaders of the oldest and the largest democracies met and talked Nepal.

A war on terror is not a war on democracy.

And the Asian Development Bank has come forth one more time to Deuba's defense. Allegations of corruption are blatantly false, the bank has said one more time.

And Norway has cut aid.

38 professional organizations have warned the government.

The common public, the kind that does not necessarily come out into the streets for political demonstrations, has started to lose patience with the new regime's non deliverance. The house of cards has been collapsing.

The terrorism card did not work. The corruption card did not work. Now the regime is on to the time card, the patience card. If only it will hold out long enough, the world will come around to it, it will get used to it. That card is even less strong than the other two cards. The Indo-US-EU alliance is not about to budge. In Nepal's case, because the country is not exactly a Pakistan or a China, strategically speaking, these powers actually can afford to talk and act idealistic, and looks like they are. The whole idea behind 2/1 was that the king can take care of internal dissent. All he has to do is get outer acceptance. Attending a few international conferences does not cut it either. There is this fundamental logjam. This political paralysis.

People like Tulsi Giri actually feel they are on the verge of a "partyless democracy." How delusional can one get!

In The News

• Bush, Singh stress restoration of democracy in Nepal Kathmandu Post, Nepal US President Geroge W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh have agreed that it's extremely crucial for King Gyanendra to restore civil liberties...... With regard to India's bid to secure UN Security Council seat, Bush told Singh that the USA was backing only Japan in this regard.
• Nepali diaspora in US concerned Kantipur .... Sushil Pyakurel, ex-member of NHRC; Shambhu Thapa, president, Nepal Bar Association; and Dr Gopal Krishna Shiwakoti, human rights activist, are presently in the US .... Pramod Aryal, guest research scientist at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said..... Chautari and Greater Boston Nepalese Community, on July 25, at Harvard University .... Pyakurel met and briefed former Minority leader Senator Tom Daschle .... understand that the king is simply trying to discredit the parties..... "If the international arms supply to Nepal stops, it would put significant pressure on the king"
• Melamchi on deathbed Kantipur
• Norway withdraws; ADB says no irregularites Kantipur
• 38 professional orgs warn govt Kantipur .... warned of launching strong protest programs ... no alternative to a unified and stormy movement to safeguard their trade union rights..... Gorkhapatra Corporation Employees' Association, Federation of Professionals, Nepal Civil Employees' Organization, Nepal National Teachers' Organization, Inter-corporation Employees' Association, Inter-Bank Employees' Association, Nepal Health Technicians' Association, Nepal Nursing Association, Diploma Engineers' Association, Nepal Rangers' Association, TU Progressive Employees' Organization, Nepal Surveyors' Association and Ex-civil Servants' Organization..... Nepal Agriculture Research Council Employees' Association, Para-Veterinary and Livestock Employees' Association, Local Bodies Employees' Association, TU Employees' Association, Nepal Bank Employees' Association, Nepal Rastra Bank Employees' Association, Sanchaya Kosh Employees' Association, Rastriya Beema Sansthan Employees' Association and Nepal Insurance Company Employees' Association.... NEA Employees' Union, Nepal Telecom Employees' Association, Nepal Water Supply Corporation Employees' Association, Dairy Development Corporation Employees' Association, Industrial Estate Management Company Employees' Association, Nepal Oil Corporation Employees' Association, Nepal Food Corporation Employees' Association, Radio Transmission and Development Committee Employees' Association, Cottage and Small Industries Committee Employees' Association, Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation Employees' Association. TCN Employees' Association, JEMC Employees' Association, Agriculture Development Bank Employees' Association and Royal Drugs Limited Employees' Association.
• Parties condemn use of force Kantipur ... will take out "harsher" protest programs in future..... the "special meeting" of incumbent and ex-lawmakers has been scheduled for July 26 at Birendra International Convention Center.
• Student unions continue stir Kantipur .... torch rallies in New Baneswor. .. set up a road blockade in front of Shanker Dev College..... more protest programs have been planned out by eight student unions but declined to disclose any details..... the six students arrested were not released though their jail term expired on Wednesday.
• Politics and political analysis Kantipur .... Panchayat era has been revived completely ... the 1990 movement was terminated without any definite and written document specifying the code and mode of future governance...... Politics is decided and guided by class interest, not by preaching and sermon..... the parties should go to people to earn their faith and educate them about the need of establishing genuine democracy before expecting any substantial achievement

Regime Bent On Repression

The regime is out doing all it can to muffle protests. This is not a regime making attempts at reconciliation.

This makes for confrontation.

They brutally attack the student protesters. They prevent the former parliamentarians from gathering. They are shifting gears and moving towards repression a few notches.

I keep coming back to this: the seven party alliance will have to ditch the demand for a reinstatement of the 1999 parliament. That is a major bottleneck preventing a full fledged movement.

The goal has to be an all party interim government that takes the country to a Constituent Assembly.

And acts of repression have to be dealt with differently this time than they were after the 1990 movement. Some kind of a Truth And Reconciliation Commission will have to be formed in the aftermath to punish the worst offenders. Acts of repression now can not go unaccounted for post-democracy.

In The News

• Public Knows All United We Blog .... For the first time after the (abrupt for many and planned for a few fistful) Feb 1 royal takeover, I saw people, general people, talking something sharply against the royal regime..... Dekhiyo, dekhiyo,” he said, “rajako sasan pani dekhiyo. Kehi napenan. [I saw the king’s rule as well. He delivered no result.]” ..... “Look that announcement of pillion riding ban,” he commented sharply. “In the evening they banned and in the next morning they backtracked from the decision. They have become unsuccessful.”
• No Special Session This Time Around United We Blog Parliamentarians gathered in front of Royal Nepal Academy in Kamaladi where they had planned to hold the 3rd session of the parliament. But they were denied the entrance..... orders from higher authorities forced the academy..... Girija Prasad Koirala.. said, “This signals that king has chosen the path of confrontation.” ...... Government has been barring political activities in and around Ratna Park.
• Nepal: Drifting In A Sea Of Doubts Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand a section of the Indian establishment that has scarcely veiled its desire to see the abolition of the monarchy in Nepal. Professor S.D. Muni of Jawahar Lal Nehru University in New Delhi and retired Gen. Ashok K. Mehta, currently a security analyst, are the public face of this group...... Indian Foreign Minister K. Natwar Singh has been described as an advocate of promoting the Maoists and mainstream parties to eventually replace the monarchy..... The Times of India stood by its story last month that Indian intelligence agencies were "chaperoning" Dr. Bhattarai despite official denials...... Prachanda had accused Dr. Bhattarai of bolstering groupism and working against the insurgency by questioning recent military decisions of the party’s highest decision making body...... Dr. Bhattarai, a prolific and powerful essayist ..... Ahead of the party’s quadrennial national convention, the Nepali Congress leadership is under pressure from younger activists to join the Maoist campaign to overthrow the monarchy.... sections within the Nepali Congress that now appear to favor a republican agenda – such as former House of Representative speaker Ram Chandra Poudel and former finance minister Ram Sharan Mahat ......... Dr. Narayan Khadka, a leading member of Deuba’s Nepali Congress (Democratic), noted that the mainstream alliance is founded on “very shallow theoretical and pragmatic foundations”. Some of the parties in the alliance, he wrote, have only very reluctantly accepted the demand for the reinstatement of parliament and many active members (in all parties) do not subscribe to this demand at all.
• Dr Bhattrai hails Prachanda’s decision to revoke action NepalNews .... saying it should not be taken as a victory or defeat of any side .... mentioned that the party action against him and two other politburo members, Dina Nath Sharma alias Ashok and Hisila Yami alias Rahul, who is Bhattrai’s wife, was taken on grounds of policy disputes......
  
• Students-cops clash in Nepal The Statesman, India
  
• Thousands queue up as Telecom opens registration of new cellular lines NepalNews
• Opposition parties barred from organising mock session NepalNews
• Only specified unions to be allowed: Govt., Unions warn of stir NepalNews Amending the existing Civil Service Act, the government has said it will not allow government employees unions in the country except those that are approved by it...... Minister of General Administration Krishna Lal Thakali said the present government would not allow the civil servants to work as ‘trade unions or sister organisations’ of the political parties...... enforced through an ordinance last week-- has been designed to exercise total control over the bureaucracy and make civil servants submit to the new regime.... "The ordinance seems to be aiming at taking the country’s bureaucracy to stone age." ....... president of Nepal Nijamati Karmachari Sangathan (NNKS)—the largest union of civil servants in the country, Murari Bhattarai said the government employees were able to exercise their right to form union through 15-year-long struggle and that it can’t be brought down ‘like a house of cards’ overnight....... ‘We have got around 50,000 civil servants as our members and many more are well-wishers. The government’s decision (to ban employees’ unions) is against the country’s constitution, Supreme Court’s verdict as well as against the UN and ILO conventions to which Nepal is a party,” said Bhattarai. Now, we have got no option left than to agitate, he warned....... The Minister, who held the same portfolio in the sacked Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government ..... He, however, said if that had been the case, Pyakurel could have committed suicide within days of the government’s decision and not wait for several months.
• Govt bars mock session Parliament Kathmandu Post, Nepal As an indicator of harsher times to come ..... the political parties had already paid the fee for the hall ..... "The king will have to bear the consequence of this move," Koirala told journalists. ... "The royal government's action is deplorable. It obstructed the program of the people's representatives," Deputy Speaker Chitra Lekha Yadav said...... The leaders, cadres and well wishers of the seven political parties then took out a protest rally from Kamaladi, a prohibited area. The rally was dispersed by policemen when it reached Putali Sadak.
• RNA using Dullu kids as informants Kantipur ..... questioned by young boys, aged 8 to 14, carrying wooden toy guns. These boys, numbering around 18, are from the "child military unit", whose job is to secure the bazaar by informing the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) of every new arrival in the area.... boys, trained by RNA for the purpose.... Mahendra Kumar Thapa, a ninth-grader at Bijaya Higher Secondary School, is a "major". The rest of the boys salute him. Ram Bahadur Thapa, a seventh-grader, is a "captain". Similarly, fifth-grader Sundar Dani, eighth-grader Navin Kumar Thapa, and seventh-grader Jhak Bahadur Bhandari, are "lieutenant", "second lieutenant" and "jamadar" respectively...... At times, the boys have to stay with the army sentry till as late as 1 am..... Sudip Raj Kandel, captain and in-charge at the local RNA base camp, said, "I do not know anything about that kind of training. I came here just 7-8 days ago."..... they admit that their parents regularly urge them to stop working as informants...... They are paid Rs 15 for each meter of pipe they lay in the drinking water project that is under construction in Dullu...... using children as sentries, informants and labor is a violation of the Geneva Convention
• Nepal's political parties vow to intensify struggle Outlook (subscription), India Nepali Congress central member Krishna Sitaula said the political parties were working out to form a dialogue committee to hold talks with the Maoists to bring them into the political mainstream.
• US, India for restoration of civil liberties in Nepal Kantipur Online, Nepal
• UML Discusses Prachanda's Call for Talks Himalayan Times ... CPN-UML standing committee meeting .... The alliance may not form any talks team ..... the alliance would think over other options to hold talks with the rebel leaders.
  
• Parties initiate discussion on Prachanda's call Kathmandu Post ... In a meeting of the chiefs of the seven parties - Nepali Congress (NC), NC (Democratic), CPN-UML, Peoples' Front Nepal, Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandi Devi), Nepal Workers' and Peasants' Party and United Left Front - on Monday, the leaders cautiously welcomed Prachanda's proposal...... the parties will take a formal decision after their next meeting on July 24 and will appeal to the Maoists to create an environment of confidence for negotiations.... immediately halt killing of innocents, political cadres, abduction, looting, forced donation and destruction of physical infrastructure as the minimum condition for negotiation.
  
• United We Blog! ...for a Peaceful & Democratic Nepal United We Blog, Nepal.... The fact that both warring parties, i.e., the King and the Maoists lack people from the mainstream middle ground means that there can be no negotiated settlement to the crisis at this present stage...... Constituent Assembly, according to Thapa, is not going to work as a panacea to Nepal’s political crisis either. He questioned if a Constituent Assembly was to be formed, and if the armed groups failed to elect “their” people in the assembly, would they easily give up arms and be content with the results? ....... one solution can be to have an agreement among the middle ground people of the Maoists and the political parties in order to corner the King ...... The King does not support the idea of multi-party democracy...... This war is not between terrorists and the government – this war is between AUTOCRACY and DEMOCRACY...... fundamental rights of the people are embedded in their existence from their birth...... Only 21 lawyers out of over ten thousand registered are listed by the government to have supported the tyrannical regime...... Send reports of pro-democracy activities here in the US to Nepal. This will provide encouragement and strength to people struggling for democracy at home....... Raise funds to support pro-democracy institutions and activities in Nepal. Financial help is direly needed....... the fact that democratic governments failed to address the legitimate concerns of certain section of the public contributed to rise of the movement to an armed struggle...... He has made no secret of the fact that he loathes the multi-party political process, and blames the country’s crisis on the ineptitude of the political parties, rather than on unfavorable socio-political conditions....... King Gyanendra also doesn’t (still) believe that the current bureaucracy will support him....... They have realized the importance of pushing for things like negotiations and peace even by being outside the power helm...... Nepalis in the US can do much by contributing to opinion building by organizing events such as discussion forums and other informative sessions....... those efforts have been bolstered by support form international community and the Nepali Diaspora...... Instead of cracking down on the Maoists, the government has largely exhausted its resources to crack down on political parties, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, and other members of the democratic civil society........ The Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) when there already existed Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA); High Level Human Rights Committee when there already was National Human Rights Commission....... district-level investigative body with broad and unquestionable authority to search homes, and offices and detain people without the due process of the law....... facts that contradict progress on the Maoists front: 60% increase on the rate of daily killings since February 1st .. Nearly 1200 lives lost due to the conflict since February first .. About 40 major fatal attacks by the Maoists since February 1st, which is three folds more than before. .. 4-5 lakhs people internally displaced .. 8-9 lakhs have had to flee to foreign countries .. 40% rise in child soldiers in the Maoist ranks ...... The new regime seems to be deeply frustrated with the steps taken by the international community..... the conflict MUST be resolved through democratic means, either through a referendum, or constitutional assembly, or all-party government, or a round table. One can clean shave the hair due to dandruff problems, but cannot slash the throat for it..... About 45 Nepalis attended the talk program at the Himalayan Yak Restaurant
• Norway reduces development aid to Nepal. Kantipur Online “The Government of Norway considers the development after 1 February as a serious setback in regards to multiparty democracy, to constitutional monarchy, to human rights, and to finding a peaceful solution to the ongoing violent conflict” ..... “On the same basis, the decision has been made to terminate, with immediate effect, the bilateral agreement on financial support to the Melamchi Water Supply Project”
  
• Writing on the wall Kathmandu Post The King said, "No, I don't understand, you're an intellectual." .... "Open society, transparency, mass participation, mass communicative ideas, I understand all this but it has to suit with the people of Nepal, lofty ideas are impracticable." ..... a clear message of guided democracy and indirect autocracy..... the overused and overexploited article 127 ..... remodeling education, crippling journalism, redefining human rights, and wiping out the impression of freedom and democracy from general people's mind..... the announcement of the apologists' federation of journalists......On the afternoon of July 15th, Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General, visited the King and in the evening the King opened yet another card of defiance. He expanded his cabinet ornate with a convict, pro-dictatorial kingship advocate, the person who did his best to crush the 1990 democratic move as the home minister, and he also added yet another bank defaulter...... If the political parties are still waiting for the monsoon to die down before bringing their movement to life, if the civil society still prefers to act indifferent, and if the general public still don't feel insulted by the regime, there is no hope for the restoration of democracy in this country.
• No irregularities in Melamchi contract: ADB Kantipur "Based on the assessment of the documents in its position and the interviews carried out Integrity Division of the Office of the Auditor General [the OAIG] has not found or received any evidence of collusion or other corrupt or fraudulent practice among those involved in the bidding process for the MDS/AAR/02 contract [contract of adit access road]," reads the investigation report in its conclusion..... The report has come at a time when the controversial royal anti-graft body is preparing to finalize the MDWP case.
• Parties criticize police intervention Kantipur
  
• Civil servants challenge ban on unions Kantipur
• Govt. bars formation of civil servant unions Kantipur