Nepal: Troubles Of Your Making

More than one year has passed since the People’s Movement in 2006 but Nepalis have seen only one trouble after another most of them are the makings of the seven-party alliance (SPA) and the Maoists. Both the parties failed to strictly honor the number of agreements they had signed off. Nepalis have anticipated the drastic changes in the governance after the fall of the autocratic king but they have to live in the perpetual troublesome environment despite the autocratic king have gone.

If the SPA and the CPN-Maoist revisited the “Twelve-point Understanding” they had reached on November 22, 2005, they would find that both the parties failed to honor most of the provisions made in the understanding. For example, Article 8 of the understanding has the provision such as “we have committed to fully honor the values and ideals of human rights” but both parties have horribly failed in safeguarding the basic human rights as both parties have been reluctant to ensure autonomy, and proportional representation of all Nepalis, and to track down the people made disappeared by both the Nepali Army and the Maoists during the conflict between the state and the Maoists.

After the success of the People’s Second Movement in 2006, first trouble popped up when Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala declared that he was for a ceremonial king. Spontaneous protests against the Prime Minster’s statement erupted across the country. Some students went on rampage in Kathmandu burning tires on the streets disrupting traffic causing inconvenience to the public in general.

Then, the SPA and the CPN-Maoist not including the provision for autonomy, proportional representation and federalization in the interim constitution promulgated on January 15, 2007 provoked the ethnic Nepalis to protest. The Maoists fueled the protest shooting and killing one of the protestors in terai in the beginning of the protests launched by the ethnic and Madheshi Nepalis in January 2007. The NC and the CPN-UML did not do much to contain the Madheshi protests in terai affecting the whole nation hoping to counterbalance the Maoists’ activities in terai.

Then, the Maoists went head-on collision with the Madheshi People's Rights Forum (MPRF). They attempted to rally at the same place and at the same time in Gaur, terai in March 2007. Reportedly, the royalists infiltrating into the Madheshis’ rally killed twenty-seven Maoists making one of the worst bloodsheds; the CPN-Maoist went to the local police to lodge a murder case against the MPRF but the police refused to register it.

The SPA and the CPN-Maoist have been dragging their feet to amend the interim constitution to meet the demands of the ethnic Nepalis provoking the Madheshi legislators to obstruct the House session. Legislators of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party joined the bandwagon of the dissident legislators and have obstructed the House session since April 18, 2007. The blockade of the House session ended on May 31, 2007.

The ethnic and Madheshi Nepalis have continued their street demonstrations demanding autonomy, proportional representation and federalization. Probably, they might continue their protest rallies no matter who would come to power until their demands would be met. The world is in the 21st century so nobody would tolerate the suppressive rule. Self-rule in other words autonomy should prevail as Mahatma Gandhi said, “self-rule is the birth right.”

Nepali Congress (NC) President and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala have been going against the popular will of declaring Nepal a republic. He buttonholed the district NC presidents assembled at Sanepa, Kathmandu in May 2007 to discus the current political situation and the NC stance on the monarchy when they demanded to declare Nepal a republic.

However, the general convention of the Nepal Students’ Union held in Chitwan, central Nepal on Friday, May 25, 2007 electing Pradip Poudel, pro-republican candidate to the president of the Union gave Prime Minister Girija a good answer to his dictatorial position on the monarchy. It also was the indication of the young generation of Nepalis wanted nothing but republic. The Nepal Students’ Union is the student wing of the Nepali Congress headed by incumbent Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. However, Girija and his clique continued to support the monarchy.

The CPN-Maoist unleashed the Young Communist League (YCL) members to continue the job left behind by the Maoists to join the interim government. They have been terrorizing the innocent people in Kathmandu and elsewhere in Nepal. If they did not unlearn their dictatorial behavior and did not learn the values and ideals of democracy they were bound to be failure as had been the king. Nepalis would not leave any dictator in peace.

Prime Minister Girija said that the leftover power of the monarchy was only 20% drawing widespread criticism from the media and the political leaders. He forgot that even the monarch with zero power left, Tribhuvan ultimately became the absolute king in early1950s then, his son Mahendra killed democracy dissolving the elected government of the NC on December 15, 1960. On February 01, 2005, freak King Gyanendra repeated his father’s actions, and snapped the tele-communications networks for a week causing billions of rupees worth of loss to the nation.

Then, Nepalis had to undergo immense troubles and sacrificed more than twenty lives before King Gyanendra was dislodged from the power, and get back the sovereignty of the people, and put democracy back on track. Girija continued to love the monarchy despite these historical truths and the people’s disenchantment with the monarchy. This was another trouble of his making and putting democracy at risk again. Most of the young generation Nepalis did not want to see anyone becoming the king of Nepal not to mention the irrational and erratic crown prince. If anyone comes back as a king of Nepal then it will be the making of Girija again.

All Nepalese school children had to stay home for more than a week as the teachers closed all school for forcing the government to meet their demands. It was not the right thing to do for the teachers as they were punishing the school children for the inaction of the Minister for Education and Sports. The right thing for them to do was either to block the entrance to the Ministry of Education and Sports to stop all employees and the minister from working or to go on strike at their respective schools rather than enforced closure of all schools in the country.

After the Minister of Education and Sports opted to go head-on collision with the teachers not meeting the demands of the teachers, and the brutal police beatings of the protesting teachers at the entrance to the Ministry of Education and Sports on Friday, May 25, 2007, Nepalis suffered from the enforced closure of the country on Sunday May 27, 2007, while the 7.8 million Nepalese school children have already stayed home for more than a week. However, schools have been opened since May 28, 2007

The CPN-UML Minister for Education and Sports, Pradip Nepal has inflamed the teachers’ protest labeling their actions as terrorist acts. The Minister has shown his incompetence in dealing with the teachers letting them to close all schools in the country. Why could not the Minister punish the teachers that have violated the rights of school children to go to schools? Has such a Minister right to stay on the position without resolving the problem? Why does not the Prime Minister take actions against the Minister for being indifferent in resolving the crisis in the education sector?

The Minister should not simply wait and see what would be the future development of the protest of the teachers. He should have immediately talked to the teachers and resolved the problem amicably or take strong actions against the teachers who had violated the law or should have resigned from the position. He has not only disgraced himself but also the party he represented without acting promptly. Why should Nepalese taxpayers pay for his salary, official resident and slick ministerial car not only using for the official purposes but also for his family shopping if he was not prompt to resolve the problem with the teachers?

Prime Minister Girija neither published the report of the High Level Probe Commission (HLPC) headed by the former Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal, Rayamajhi nor did take actions as recommended in the report rather sent it to the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) to prosecute the killers of Nepalese people and of the democracy during the peoples’ movement in April 2006, for the abuses of authority rather than for murder.

The Nepalese media had leaked out some contents of the HLPC’s report and had stated that the HLPC had recommended the government for taking actions against the king for all the wrongs he had done in the capacity of the chairman of the Council of Minister during the 15-month period of his direct rule. Now, the Girija and his clique floated the news that the HLPC had not recommend actions against the king. This was another trick of Girija and his clique to save the monarchy going against the popular wish of most of the Nepalis.

Whenever Girija was in the Prime Ministerial position he made more troubles to the Nepalese people than used to be, destroyed the state-owned companies and became the cause of derailing the democracy in 1990s. He was not playing by the rule of law but by his discretion. Nepalis had never live in peace during his term of office of the Prime Minister in the past. He has been doing the same after Nepalis took the power from the autocratic king and gave it to the SPA, which in turn turned it over to Girija unwisely.

Maoists’ second-in-command, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has said that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has an international image. Yes, he earned an international image at the cost of Nepalese people’s peace, prosperity and fundamental human rights to live in self-rule. He did everything possible to keep the international community happy as had done by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in Russia. For which they paid heavy price becoming the most unpopular politicians in Russia and putting Russia in a reverse gear.

Girija would have been much more popular and his NC party would have been much better position than now if he chose to be the people’s leader rather than taking the side of the monarchy that had betrayed not only the Nepalese people but this party too not once but several times. Protecting the monarchy the NC would gain nothing but lose many things. If the history were a guide to the future events the king would usurp the power from the NC whenever an opportunity arises for him to do so as both the NC and the king are contenders for the same power.

Now, his party has been internally split into the pro-republicans and the pro-monarchists. If the pro-republicans could come out of the grip of the pro-monarchist then the NC would have a chance of continuing a party of the people if not then it would be one of the monarchists’ parties, and would lose the popular base.

Prime Minister Girija has been not only the threat to his party but also to the fragile democracy in Nepal. He did not do much to strengthen the democratic institutions delaying the appointment to the key vacant positions of Nepal Human Rights Organization, ignoring the appeal of human rights organizations to make public the whereabouts of the people made enforced disappearances by the Nepali Army, and covering up the atrocities of the Nepali Army. He also has been delaying to put the derailed democracy back on track not setting the date for the elections for a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. These were all makings of the SPA and CPN-Maoist.

Please visit website www.kathmandumetro.com and write to Siddhi@SiddhiRanjitkar.com

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