#201 18 - 24 June 2004 20 pages Rs 25 hen the Maoists got their student wing to force a W nationwide education shutdown two weeks ago, they wanted to put political pressure on the government to resume CLASS WAR negotiations. It seems to be working. NAVIN SINGH KHADKA The government is also hoping that an end to the education strike But the army is said to be dead over Nepal for revolutionary could mark the beginning of a peace against a ceasefire, citing previous indoctrination sessions. process. If the talks with the Maoist truces that the Maoists used to If there is a silver lining in the When student wing are successful, it could regroup. school closure, it is that it may lead pave the way for possible peace It is the governments security to another truce. A prominent schools talks, Education Minister forces that use schools as barracks and human rights activist in the Bimalendra Nidhi told us on bring violence to them, says the mediation task force told us: Both become a Thursday afternoon, as mediators Maoist AANFSU-R president, the Maoists and the government appeared closer to a deal. Lekhnath Neupane, who has been want to see the negotiations war zone, Sudeep Pathak, coordinator of giving frequent phone interviews on between their student wing and the task force mediating between FM stations all week. the government leads to peace the sword is the government and the rebel However, it is clear that the talks. students said an agreement was education strike is more about politics So far, the only thing standing mightier than within reach and that there was than about education. We believe in the way is semantics.l bargaining on the precise wording the AANFSU-R strike is politically the pen of the agreement. An agreement motivated because the real demands on opening schools could lead to of the students on fees have been peace talks, he said. sidelined, says Rajendra Rai, The Maoist students main president of the rival UML-affiliated demand is the withdrawal of its student union. Editorial p2 terrorist tag, but the government The Maoists, who have seen their Nepali dystopia first wants them to accept schools anti-monarchy slogans hijacked by as violence free zones. Minister the anti-regression street agitation of Nidhi told us: If they agree to keep the political parties and their student out of schools, we can consider wings, needed to assert themselves. withdrawing the terrorist label. An indefinite education strike was an The Maoists are under easy way to make their presence considerable pressure after the arrest felt. Besides closing schools, the of their top leaders in India and Maoists have also been taking analysts say they would benefit away thousands of students and from a monsoon breathing spell. teachers from rural schools all Weekly Internet Poll # 141 Q. Is Sher Bahadur Deuba likely to get the Maoists to agree on a ceasefire? Total votes:1,474 Weekly Internet Poll # 142. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Should the UML join the Deuba government? 2 EDITORIAL 18 - 24 JUNE 2004 #201 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editors: Trishna Gurung, Jemima Sherpa Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Bhushan Shilpakar Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal The middle way Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 Liberating democracy from the shackles of the past NEPALI DYSTOPIA s Nepals choices narrow elections and the need to raise more emphasis on the rules and down to either a guided funds by any means to win votes. liberal norms rather than just s things go from bad to worse, this country’s well-wishers keep asking A democracy of the right or a They began to lose authority over elections. Many leading A us: what do you think will happen? One thing we have learnt is not peoples democracy, it is time to the behaviour of their party cadre democracies in the West built their to underestimate the capacity for Nepal’s circumstances to get even more dire. “Things will get worse before they get better,” we say wistfully, start looking for an alternative and the civil servants. The rot nations in that way. Even semi- recognising that only the first part of that statement may hold true. middle way. spread quickly through the system. democratic Asian economies Observe the signs of a failing state: the scant presence of the Under both scenarios, the first By the end of the 1990s, implemented sound liberal values government in large parts of the country, the sagging morale of those casualty will be competitive Nepal was practicing an illiberal like rule of law, quality of who are supposed to be in charge and the demolition of the education elections and the loss of civil liberty and dysfunctional democracy. But regulation and accountability. We system. Extrapolating this country’s accelerated slide downwards, it is easy to despite all this, democratic must strike a balance here, and in predict a doomsday scenario for 2006: by then the death toll in a GUEST COLUMN institutions were being built and a several ways: decade of conflict reaches 25,000. The number of those wounded, Alok Bohara new culture of political choice and maimed, bereaved, orphaned and widowed crosses the one million mark. freedom was spreading across the The political parties must first Almost every family is touched by tragedy. A Maoist utopia is already and individual rights. From a land. The foundations of a future exhibit some internal democracy. looking like a dystopia. The revolution has degenerated into criminality and warlordism, with practical geopolitical point of view, genuine democracy were being They must be brought under a a new generation of unschooled children taking up arms. The Maoist a Maoist utopia with a heavy dose laid. strict code of conduct, including rank and file is wracked by infighting and purges, but the leadership can’t of social engineering in the middle This glimmer of hope can be fair and progressive election finance stop fighting without risking the ruthless retribution of hardliners. The war of the two rising free market seen within the entrepreneural rules, which will allow a fresh takes on an increasingly ethnic polarisation. As the conflict gets more economies is hard to imagine. spirit of our small private sector. It young leadership to emerge. desperate, the guerrillas show less and less interest in the safety of non- Our elder leaders did suffer in was too much to expect our Political devolution to combatants, indeed deliberately targeting them to sow panic and chaos. The countryside is littered with landmines and booby-trap roadside their struggle for liberty from the democracy to be perfect in just 10 regional governments and some bombs. Rana regime and the autocratic years. But when the time comes to form of mixed proportional The military becomes even more indiscriminate in cracking down on Panchayat system. But after pick up the pieces and rebuild it representation system of election suspected insurgents. Instances of disappearances, extra-judicial killings, achieving a multiparty system, their with a new constitution and a new may give added weight to grassroot pillage and rape put Nepal right at the top of the list of the world’s worst focus and priority was on winning democratic process, we must put voices. Half the countries around violators of human rights, mentioned in the same breath as Congo and Colombia. the world have these two provisions Tourism is a thing of the past, the civilian administration in one way or another. and government has long since collapsed. The This should be followed by political parties have been torn to shreds by economic devolution with a 50/ the pincers of the extreme left and right, 50 revenue sharing formula from and by their own infighting. Five million hydropower and other resources to Nepalis have fled to India and New Delhi has started voicing concerns about be ploughed into local instability in Nepal threatening its own development through federal security. India does not allow UN incentives to innovate, develop and peacekeeping forces to stabilise the invest. This will balance regional situation, but doesn’t intervene itself for fear economic growth and allow fairer of being sucked into the conflict. Nepal is left to its own devices, just another hotspot benefits to local populations. in an increasingly unstable world that no Political and economic devolution one has time for. can benefit both the center and the It doesn’t take a prophet to foresee this regional governments. apocalyptic scenario in two year’s time. Separation of powers and the Signs are already pointing that way, and question of the armys chain of that is the way things will go unless the comrades in the hills, the king in his palace command is one of the most and the political parties on the streets come to intractable points of disagreement their senses and see where they are taking the between the king, political parties country. Maybe one of them will wrest control one and the Maoists. The current three- day, but of what use is that power if there is no member Defence Council may be country left to exercise it in? widened to include some key ROBIN SAYAMI L ETTERS DEUBA III airline has more than 2,000 benefits’ in ‘Dogmandu’ (#199), THE D WORD more than triple the amount He roared like a sher in 1995 employees for only two jet citing their protection, loyalty and Why is it that the word available now if it is to meet the and so did the Maoists.