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#448 24 - 30 April 2009 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 448 Q. Do you think 2066 will be better than 2065? Total votes: 4,362 Hand-to-hand Army row is bad news for constitution-writing and the peace process Weekly Internet Poll # 449. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Should Gen Katawal step down as PRASHANT JHA Khadka, who is understood to be Chief of Army Staff? escalating divisions within the President Ram Baran Yadav’s UML. Dahal is learnt to have stern advice to Dahal to work for lobbying hard for the job, would fter recent rows over secured UML chairman Jhalanath political consensus played a part take over. recruitment and the Khanal’s assent before his in the Maoists taking a step back. As expected, there was A retirement of generals, it departure to China, but Yadav is said to have warned of pressure from India to leave the was army chief Rookmangud after cutting short his visit the consequences if an ethnic army alone. Delhi had assured Katawal’s decision to partially Khanal and returning Thursday candidate for the chief’s position the army that its chain of pull out from the national games Khanal had changed his tune. is bypassed. General Chhatraman command, structure and interests last week that seems to have Singh Gurung would head the would be protected in return for been the last straw for army if Katawal retires on support during the peace process Prime Minister Pushpa schedule in September. If he is in the last three years. It sees the Kamal Dahal. sacked, General Kul Bahadur institution as the last bulwark The controversy against the Maoists, and has now become a sent word to prestige issue Dahal there between the would be costs two, as the if he went country’s ex- ahead. guerrilla prime But the minister and its game is not army chief over yet. “If engage in hand- the prime to-hand fighting. minister “The trigger was pulls back now, the national games. The he can play the PM was personally victim card furious at temporarily but his Katawal’s credibility within the party defiance,” a would be dented and the senior cadre will be Maoist leader demoralised,” a Maoist told Nepali secretariat member admitted. Times on Dahal will now have to find Wednesday. “We have a face-saving way to appease his logic and the law on our side, cadre, assuage nervous political and have been preparing to do parties and wary internationals. this for two weeks.” On Thursday, the prime minister But non-Maoists, even those met UNMIN chief Karin Landgren who believe in civilian and later summoned a group of supremacy, feel the Maoists are ambassadors from India, UK, US bent on a strategy to take over and China and told them he was total state control. Katawal’s looking for a “third option”. The dismissal would pave the way for envoys reportedly only listened, a more pliable chain of command and didn’t ask any questions. dependent on Maoist patronage, The row doesn’t bode well while also enhancing Dahal’s for the constitution-writing and popularity within the party. the peace process, deepening However, it hasn’t quite gone mistrust between political according to the script because of actors. z BILASH RAI 2 EDITORIAL 24 - 30 APRIL 2009 #448 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit CEO: Ashutosh Tiwari Design: Kiran Maharjan DGM Sales and Marketing: Sambhu Guragain [email protected] Marketing Manager: Subhash Kumar Asst. Manager: Arjun Karki Circulation: Prakash Raut Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5250333/845 Fax: 5251013 [email protected] Printed at Jagadamba Press 5250017-19 www.nepalitimes.com Give PKD his due Prachanda had no training when he chose to be Dahal rom the media coverage of bullets. The Maoists in India And the UML, despite its ARMED AND DANGEROUS his incendiary speech about still cling to arms. But internal election, still more or In normal times, the elected prime minister of a country may be F the press and the parties Prachanda, like a statesman that less clings to the outdated track entitled to ask his army chief for an explanation on why he is recently, one gets the impression he appears to be, gave up the that Madan Bhandari set almost disobeying his government. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal expanding insurgency, and his two decades ago. But these are not normal times. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal had gone rabid. But this risks have been rewarded by The culture of impunity, the Dahal leads a party that still fields an army. He and his comrades image belied the diplomatic Nepalis. undemocratic handling of the have been making open threats to capture state power by coercion. dance Dahal has been performing While Girija Koirala and army generals’ retirement, His party has shown disdain for democratic norms and contempt for press freedom and human rights. We have witnessed a since he chose the path of Madhab Nepal succeeded in violence against media houses collapse in law and order in the past eight months since Dahal multiparty democracy over armed bringing Prachanda and his party and journalists, the muscle- became prime minister. His cadre are still murdering people and insurgency. to negotiation, it is Dahal who flexing of its hardliners and, getting away with it, and there is little to show that the Maoists are was constantly bringing the above all, YCL excesses all show making much progress in the transition to open non-violent Congress, insecure UML and that Dahal and his party have politics. GUEST COLUMN volatile ethnic groups into the ways to go before being called In such a situation, tampering with the national army, the fold of democracy in order to democrats. But the ganging up by institution of last resort, carries an ominous meaning. Whatever Pramod Mishra the army may have done in its ex-royal avatar, it has played by the realise the dream of a truly the press and the parties against rules laid out in the 2006 peace accord and the interim constitution. multi-ethnic decentralised Dahal, smelling conspiracy in The army chief has on occasion made statements which could be His deft handling of the ever federal democracy. everything the Maoists do and construed as political, but with no defence minister speaking out simmering discontent within his There are a million mutinies exaggerating the danger to Nepal’s for the rank and file during transition, it was his job to safeguard party, his subtle engagement with erupting in Nepal right now as a democracy due to Maoist the morale of his troops. audiences in New York, his result of long-suppressed people political decisions equally show Civilian control of the army is a universal principle and should openness in negotiating with the awakening from centuries of that these parties might be acting be applied to Nepal only when the Maoist army has been disbanded, demobilised, rehabilitated or integrated. It only makes mushrooming ethnic movements, humiliation, deprivation and out of insecurity and old Nepal’s sense when the party leading the government stops behaving like it and his persistent transactions slumber. And, Dahal has the conspiratorial mindset. is still underground waging a violent revolution. with the increasingly onerous task of juggling these One might even suspect that It could very well be that this is just a prestige issue for cantankerous political parties, all myriad forces while leading the they do not want a new Nepal to Defence Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa who needs to show his own this could not be the result of ship of a mapless state without be born, as Dahal alleges, if it Maoist rank and file that he can’t be pushed around. Maybe the mere Machiavellianism. any training in democratic means rebuilding their parties on Maoists needed this as a distraction to mask their governance At the time of the peace politics that, say, Nehru had radically different platforms from failures. But those would be the charitable explanations. Much more probable is that the Maoists see the army as the last bastion agreement, the Maoists had little when he became India’s prime the status quo. And the media that can stop them from grabbing total power and have decided to hope that people would give minister. Neither did ‘Prachanda’ should ask itself if its class and undermine it from within. them the confidence of the ballot have colleagues or a party group bias is not responsible for As Supreme Commander, President Ram Baran Yadav has a in return for decade-long terror of seasoned in democratic exercise the overwhelmingly negative tone role and responsibility in resolving this issue when he chose to be ‘Dahal’. toward the Maoists. So, save for a before it derails the peace process. He has the The UML and Congress, couple of intemperate phrases, right in grave circumstances to provide advice to which pursued individual which the media overplayed, the sitting government, and let the government know his concern and dissatisfactions. He can’t ambition, bickering and petty Dahal’s speech appears do more than that, but that much he must do. feuds for posts that harmed them convincing about the behaviour After all, he is not a ceremonial president but and Nepal from 1990 to 2002 are of his opposition. a constitutional one, with a constitutional function showing those signs once again. Many in Nepal thought that in a parliamentary democracy. And given the Maoists’ growing the end of kingship would lead This crisis can be turned into an opportunity success in the elections, their to rule by their party or group to focus attention on the much more urgent matter behaviour might get even worse.