#258 29 July - 4 August 2005 16+4 pages Rs 30 LIFE IN A BUBBLE: Weekly Internet Poll # 258 Children going to school in Q... Should the parties respond to the Libang earlier this month in Maoist offer of negotiations? the middle of strife-torn Rolpa. Total votes:3881 Weekly Internet Poll # 259. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com How do you rate the new council of ministers with previous ones? KUMAR SHRESTHA KISHORE NEPAL in DIKTEL t has been six months since King Gyanendra took I over in Kathmandu promising to restore peace Meanwhile… but in remote district towns The rest of Nepal sees no hope in Kathmandu’s continued political paralysis across Nepal people are losing even the flicker of army has restricted teacher in Khotang. thought the army would go hope they had that the community forestry on When they find out we are after the Maoists but they are violence would soon end. suspicion that money from journalists from Kathmandu, coming after us,” is a Since February, I have timber sales was going to the peasants, teachers, traders, tea common refrain. traveled across Nepal: from rebels. shop owners, women and In Libang’s little bubble, Pyuthan, Rolpa, Achham in Teachers are being forced social workers across Nepal uniformed school children in the west to Terathum and to tear out and burn pages in always have the same ties go Charikot in the east. In new Grade Eight textbooks question: where is the peace to the Editorial p2 Terathum, Kamala Tamang’s that carry portraits and the that the king promised? only The freedom to be fair policeman husband was life histories of the royal They were already living private recently killed by Maoists family. The rebels blame the in fear of Maoist intimidation, school while the rest of and she is worried about the teachers for being government threats of violence, torture Rolpa is effectively Maoland. baby that was born soon employees, the state suspects and killings. Now, in many Civil servants call Libang after. In Jajarkot, teachers are they are Maoist sympathisers places there is also fear of the “India” and the rest of the humiliated, extorted and and doesn’t trust them. “We security forces. The people district “Pakistan”, with the forced to teach children have khukuris at our necks, find it increasingly difficult to barbwire fence that circles violence. In Dang and Jhapa, what are we supposed to tell the two sides apart and the town as “Line of villagers are concerned the do?” asks Lab Kumar Rai, a they are confused. “We Control”. Continued p4 2 EDITORIAL 29 JULY - 4 AUGUST 2005 #258 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editors: Abha Eli Phoboo, Aarti Basnyat Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Pushparaj Sharma, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 Support by default THE FREEDOM TO BE FAIR The price of complacency could be dear We have been cursed with having to live in interesting times he cacophony of near- everywhere remains the only in party leadership at the hands chronicling the past five years of Nepali life. delirious utterances by rationale for justifying the Iraq of their Young Turks, the What we as a nation have gone through since 2000 we wouldn’t T leaders of the historically war. He evidently has little time present equation could wish on any other. It started with innocent disillusionment with our democratic deficit, the political fecklessness of leaders who frittered fragile seven party alliance to go into the agony and dramatically change. The away the people’s trust. Violence ravaged the land, strikes and continue to make interesting frustrations of the Nepali people government therefore is engaged blockades disrupted life, the massacre of an entire royal family by headlines, thanks to the partisan at the hands of corrupt in a rather precarious war of one of its own. There were torture and disappearances, bereavement media, meddling diplomats and politicians following the wits. Only by better delivery of and displacement, the horrendous slaughters of innocents, unprecedented religious riots, and then a step-by-step return to self-seeking donors. restoration of ‘democracy’ development services will it mandale-ism even as totalitarians rattled the gates. Vignettes are in 1990. win the people over, earn For the Indian prime captured in our composite supplement in this issue. GUEST COLUMN admiration and support of Looking back, what has been extraordinary is the rapid pace of minister, given his government’s friends abroad, and most the slide. Such degradation takes decades in other countries–here Bihari K Shrestha love for Bhutan’s autocracy and importantly, strengthen the we went from bad to worse to awful in the span of five years. Society had been ravaged by centuries of marginalisation, exclusion and the Burmese junta, the monarchy as a much-needed exploitation, and the violence infected quickly erupting like a puss- While Madhab Nepal wants prescription is obviously countervailing force on behalf of filled boil. to hold talks with the Maoists inspired more by expediency poor and powerless Nepalis. The conflict has sent the economy into a tailspin, putting “at any cost” (whatever that than by principle. Since most However, if the recent budget pressure on media finances. Society is so polarised that objectivity means) Girija Koirala would do Nepali politicians hold is any guide it seems to be is equated with subversion. Some call us pro-royal, others pro- republic. We must be doing something right if they can’t make up so publicly. Shailaja Acharya themselves very much in thrall business as usual even in these their minds. maintains that doing so will be of India, extracting concessions unusual times. No country has We freely admit to having a bias: in favour of democracy, civil disastrous for the party and the from them such as on river deals developed without unshackling liberties and press freedom. You don’t fight totalitarian tyranny by country. But the people would be so much easier. But the creative energies of its curbing those values, and you can’t ensure sustained progress themselves will have nothing to what seems to have escaped people. The process is about without them. It has been a tumultuous journey and an experience few journalists anywhere have had to endure in this day and age. do with the parties until they America’s attention during the building their capacity and In our very first issue of this paper in July 2000, we wrote here: purify themselves: purging visit is that while it is engaged entails much more than ‘A balance of comment fosters debate and expands the public corrupt leaders, democratising in a global war on terror, our allocating a little more money sphere…a newspaper also needs a set of values to sustain itself. In themselves, ending dynastic Maoist rebels continue to enjoy for agriculture or prioritising the a society cursed with inequality, some of those values are fairly rule, and making finances safe haven in India. Karnali Zone. obvious: to speak for the last, the lost and the least. We will be fair, and we will protect our independence intensely.’ transparent. However misplaced the The Finance Minister swore What we didn’t know then was how soon and severely we’d be To add to these dynamics, Singh-Bush statement on Nepal, by the Tenth Plan provisions, put to the test. the leaders of America and India it carries an ominous ring for us most of which are ritualistic, recently agreed in in our quest for genuine stale and ineffective, and even Washington democracy. We need a counterproductive. In contrast, (presumably at government of the people, by the we have living examples of the latter’s people, and for the people and successful community initia- urging) that not what we had: a government tives even when politicians were political parties elected by people, but run by plundering the nation. This is should be the corrupt for themselves and true people power, and it shows restored to power their cronies. what the people can achieve in Nepal. The leaders of the present when they have their destiny Obviously it is in regime, however, must realise in their own hands. It is only both their that the peoples’ lack of support by supporting such initiatives national interests for the parties on the streets that the government can be more to make that call. should not be interpreted as pro-people than the ones we For the American support for it. The people are had so far. president, a with the government only by But all indications are that blanket default because they withhold the present regime is prescription of power from the parties in their anaesthetised with multiparty present state. complacency. The price of this democracy If there is a dramatic change could be very high. God save the king The countdown for a showdown over the monarchy has begun t the citizens’ rally for democracy customary homage to the king at family Young people started to openly espouse junior foreign minister Rao Inderjit Singh and peace at Ratna Park on Monday, altars after that. the republican agenda and in campus after reiterated his country’s Twin Pillar Asome demonstrators chanted The risks of having a manipulative campus, students voted against the Doctrine. slogans that would have been unthinkable monarchy were proven when Sher monarchy in referenda.