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Nepali Times for Nepal (‘Useful Idiots,’ #450) #452 22 - 28 May 2009 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 452 Q. What is the most desirable coalition: Total votes: 4,676 Weekly Internet Poll # 453. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. What is your opinion of Madhav Kumar Nepal as PM? Silver lining? ANANDA SHRESTHA KIRAN PANDAY his isn’t Darfur, it is a sandstorm hitting the desertified Kosi after the river was diverted to its previous channel. New Nepal T For the 60,000 people displaced by the river after it arring new complications, Madhav breached its levee last August the past year has been a living hell. B Kumar Nepal is being voted Nepal’s With the monsoons less than a month away, there is fear the Kosi new prime minister. will flood again. The stalemate that paralysed parliament for over two weeks was The most vulnerable in the flimsy tented camps are the women finally resolved with a compromise and children. Babies born after the flood suffer eye infections from the resolution in the house, and caretaker blowing sand as well as other diseases. And now, there is the added PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal addressed danger of human traffickers who are preying on older children, selling parliament on Thursday, making way for a them off as farmhands and restaurant workers in India. new UML-led coalition. Dahal is moving out of Baluwatar to his rented house in Naya Bajar The effect on Kosi Tappu Wildlife Reserve’s endangered arna, fresh on Friday. water dolphin and birdlife have been overlooked. Construction work The House is expected to vote for to divert the river and human encroachment threaten the sanctuary. the new prime minister on Friday or over PLAIN SPEAKING Prashant Jha The only silver lining is that according to last month’s arna census, the weekend. But the bigger hurdle is to Past imperfect p2 the number of wild buffalo is up from 159 five years ago to 219 today. keep everyone in the 22-party coalition happy with cabinet posts. From past STATE OF THE STATE CK Lal experience, that process could take A time to heal p3 Special Report p10-11 anywhere up to a week. 2 EDITORIAL 22 - 28 MAY 2009 #452 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 Past imperfect The old discredited conservative guard is back START AGAIN aoist impatience, high- challenge: a task he may not live decisions. The political deadlock continues because Nepal’s rulers either handedness, refusal to up to because of the debts owed. And the fifth character is have no idea what they are doing or have no concern for what is M renounce violence, K P Oli’s stance led the UML Rakesh Sood, unarguably the at stake: stability, peace and democracy. arrogance, duplicity and to take a strong position on most unpopular Indian envoy The Maoists say that they are hindering CA proceedings to stunning ability to antagonise Katawal’s dismissal, and his here in the last decade. Contrary establish ”civilian supremacy”, Orwellian doublespeak which multiple forces simultaneously backing is allowing Nepal to to Maoist propaganda, India actually means “we get our way, or else”. There is no way an have all contributed to the fulfill his dream. Oli will have a kept a relatively hands-off institution can be made supreme without allowing it first to do present mess. veto over key decisions. Knowing approach in the past eight what it is expected to do: elect a new leader after the old one But does that give moral Oli’s visceral anti-Maoist stand, months and did not plot to oust has resigned. legitimacy to the new political his skepticism about the peace the government. But the Katawal Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal occupied the moral high arrangement that is about to take process, and his opposition to episode changed that, making ground by exiting from the government the moment he realised office? Can the Madhav Kumar most demands of the them angry and insecure and his allies had deserted him in the middle of a crisis in Nepal-led formation address marginalised, do not be surprised enhancing their intervention. governance. He needs to show similar statesmanship and let a successor government take office through accepted norms and if there is little political will to Nepal could not have cobbled procedures of a parliamentary system. Everyone knows he is PLAIN SPEAKING find common ground with the this together without the moral, buying time. Prashant Jha Maoists. political and financial support The UML now wants to disown its past in a coalition with the Bijay Gachhedar, who along extended by Lainchaur. Indians Maoists. It has now emerged that Dahal had taken the decision to with Khum Bahadur Khadka and have an interest in ensuring that sack Gen Rookmangud Katawal with full knowledge, even if not the key political issues that Govind Raj Joshi, made the 1990s the government does not fail the direct consent, of his UML colleagues. The UML needs to confront us today: integration, synonymous with corruption and miserably. And Nepal will be devise a face-saving formula to protect its own democratic justice, constitution writing, opportunism is the third hero of most amenable to taking advice credentials and hide its duplicity. changing the state structure, this alliance. He will be justly and instructions. It is unlikely Katawal may have to step down to save the Nepal Army from engaging with disenchanted rewarded for veering the Forum MKN and these five musketeers the charges of harbouring political ambitions. This is an option communities, and providing away from the Maoists. are capable of responding to the that can buy the UML support of the Maoists and rid it from the services? Do remember that till the end, politics of grievances and destabilising influence of minor parties. The NC has a selective While Nepal is the face of this he neither wanted the elections aspirations that engulf this memory and doesn’t realise it set a destructive precedence by government, he is obliged to five to happen nor the monarchy country. obstructing CA session that it has helped call in the first place. masters who will behave like abolished. Along with Sharat This is not a plea for Maoist The political impasse isn’t as inextricable as it seems. It appears independent power centres. The Singh Bhandari, he was or Upendra rule. Neither is it an knotty because parties in the gridlock are looking for excuses first is General Katawal. If anyone encouraged by the army to join attempt to equate Maoists with rather than solutions. kidded himself that the army is the MJF. Gachhedar, who has a politics of change. The mismatch Time to stop the blame game and accept in all humility that apolitical or the chief is just stellar record of systematically between their rhetoric and every major political actor has failed to live up to the another neutral soldier, the myth ruining whichever ministry he actions is clear after their stint at expectations of the Nepali electorate. Corrective measures will has been shattered. Not only was has headed, is in the running for the top. The real point is that the begin to shape once they realise that all of them are equally he the trigger for this crisis, he deputy prime ministership and old discredited conservative responsible for the mess they find themselves in. They should all has invested enormous capital in the home portfolio. guard is back. This is a plea to learn to say sorry and start again. engineering the alternative The fourth in line is re-engineer the broader peace coalition, using his leverage with President Ram Baran Yadav. compact. old NC conservatives, the MJF Whether you agree or disagree Even today, there are only right wing and the Oli faction. with his action on Katawal, three forces capable of doing that. Pushpa Kamal Yadav is no longer a ceremonial Only a re-energised GPK who Dahal’s reference about head but a political figure. His sheds his bitterness can counter how a few are talking reply to the SC show-cause notice the loony right-wing tendencies about being Rajpakses admits as much. Parties which in the alliance he is backing. and treating Maoists constitute almost half the CA, Only a more honest PKD who like LTTE was a direct Maoists and MJF, have sheds his duplicity and dogma take-off from officially termed his action can rebuild this process. And Katawal’s unconstitutional. only an Indian government conversations with Yadav has been engaging which thinks constructively can certain interlocutors. closely with politicians in the be the external guarantor by Katawal will expect to run up to the government using its leverage to encourage have a say in crucial formation, and it is clear where consensus instead of polarising political issues. his preferences lie. Even if forces further. Showing Katawal he does not cross the line Otherwise, welcome the who’s boss will be publicly, he will play a behind- anarchy, conflict and political Nepal’s biggest the- scenes role in key political stalemate that lie right ahead. MIN RATNA BAJRACHARYA LLL ETTERS USEFUL IDIOTS hasty and shallow alliance with the Maoists Kudos and Kudos to Kul Chandra perhaps gradually ensure that Nepalis It is disingenuous of you to use Lenin’s as a way forward (‘Breakthrough in Delhi,’ Gautam for his balanced, analytical and can once again be proud to be Nepali.
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