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#229 7 - 13 JanuaryWe 2005 need 20 pages Rs 30 to talk ASIAN TSUNAMI Aruna Upreti and Daniel Lak in Tamil Nadu p4 Talk or vote: Deuba's ultimatum to the Maoists expires next week Another Krakatoa p5 post-tsunami future p15 NAVIN SINGH KHADKA here is one week to go for the ability to restore peace. We ain't seen nothing yet p17 T 13 January ultimatum the Political analysts say the government set for the UML doesnt really have any Maoists to come for talks. other option but to stay on in Otherwise, it is ready to push government, and it would be Weekly Internet Poll # 169 through with elections by April. more than happy to be at least Q. Do blockades hurt or benefit the Maoist cause? But the government will not partly in command of the state have to wait till next Thursday for machinery in future polls. For the Maoist response. Maoist chief Deuba, even a low turnout is Prachanda has already ruled out good enough for legitimacy in negotiations, warning: Talks the eyes of the international Total votes:700 about elections will only mean community and to prove to the Weekly Internet Poll # 170. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com more bloodshed. king that he has fulfilled his Q. Do you think the Outer Ring Road in In this showdown, the royal- mandate. Kathmandu is a good idea? appointed government of Sher Deuba has reportedly got the Bahadur Deuba is under pressure assurance from the security not just from the Maoists. Once apparatus that a multi-phase bitten twice shy, Deuba doesnt election is possible, and a want to give King Gyanendra nationwide average of up to 40 another justification to sack him. percent turnout can be assured. He needs polls, any polls. Five-time prime minister For now, Deubas ministers are Surya Bahadur Thapa conducted talking tough. Elections are our the 1980 referendum in which he mandate and moral obligation, delivered a victory for the Information Minister Mohmmad Panchayat with reforms camp. Mohsin told a radio interview on He thinks elections can be held. Wednesday, It can be held, just Practically it may be difficult, look at Afghanistan. But if we but technically it is possible to cant hold elections we will step hold elections, Thapa told us, down. but it is risky for Deubaji. In July, while reluctantly There are plenty of skeptics reappointing a prime minister he who doubt elections can ever be had fired, the kings terms of held in the current security reference were: restore peace and situation. There are grave doubts go for elections by the end of 2061 that campaigning is possible and BS. He didnt say hold talks. voting itself will be free and fair. Going by the kings conditions, The Girija Congress likens this government simply does not Deuba conducting elections to a have the mandate to hold talks fox guarding the chicken coop, with the rebels and the Maoists and it is playing up security understand that, points out uncertainties as a cover to political scientist Krishna oppose elections. But if Deuba Khanal. Which may be why the announces poll dates next week, rebels have rebuffed Deuba saying Girija will be in a dilemma about they will talk directly with his a boycott. boss. The real question is: will So, why did the government voters take the risk? Minister give the 13 January deadline to Mohsin has no doubt they will: the rebels? It could have been a Just look at Dailekh, the people face-saving gesture on behalf of are waiting to exercise their the main coalition partner, the democratic rights. Whoever UML, which has joined the obstructs the process will be seen government by staking all on its as anti-democratic. l KIRAN PANDAY 2 EDITORIAL 7 - 13 JANUARY 2005 #229 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Desk Editor: Abha Eli Phoboo, Aarti Basnyat 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 Tel: 01-5543333-6, Fax: 01-5521013 [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 01-5547018 A PEOPLE’S TSUNAMI ith a week to go for the government’s bullet-or-ballot W ultimatum to the Maoists, there is a sense of suspended animation. No one wants to do anything because no one wants to make a mistake. Given how we have blundered in the past 14 years, that may be just as well. Our political forces have shown a chronic inability to act even in enlightened self-interest, let alone in the national interest. One puzzling failure is political myopia that prevents politicians from figuring out who the real enemy is. Going by the people they have butchered over the past eight years, the villagers they have hounded, the school children they have abducted, the ordinary farmers and small businesses they have punished by blocking highways, the underground comrades are behaving as if their real enemies are the people of Nepal. Isn’t this supposed to be a ‘people’s war’? Aren’t they supposed to be for the people and by the people? Then why are they punishing the people? For its part, the monarchy is behaving as if its real enemy are the political parties, and not the revolutionary republicans at the gates. One of the most puzzling aspects of the post-October Fourth order is this baffling royal allergy towards politicians. True, some them are reprehensible, many were members of successive parliaments where they repeatedly displayed an absence of accountability that was breathtaking in scope. But they represent the people and democracy has this fabulous self-correcting mechanism to weed out crooks over time. Even for the longevity of his own dynasty, the king needs a buffer between himself and those who want to dethrone him. Panchayat- style divide-and-rule, political musical chairs and machination may buy him time, but it will not lengthen the monarchy’s life span. Then there are the political parties still out on the streets whose leaders have a stubborn fixation with procedures. They will oppose every idea to resolve the crisis if they are not a part of it. They will not allow a solution unless they get credit. October Fourth may have been a mistake that needs to be fixed, but what of the mistakes they made over and over again after 1990? Who is going to fix those? The party leadership seems incapable of distinguishing who its real enemy is: the monarchy or the Maoists. Who has been killing, torturing, threatening and driving out their own party cadre from the grassroots? Unless this political stalemate is broken, it will be a checkmate. And we can already hear the approaching wave. Monocracy may be tempting but it is an absolute dead-end. Democracy may be messy, but it is a mess we know how to fix. L ETTERS OUTER RING ROAD possible impact this road will have understand how Thapa, who is a adding petrol. Kathmandu may provide full support to McAllister for I have come across only one and prepare all necessary controls very respected urban planner and need an Outer Ring Road in the the cases filed against them by concrete reason for constructing even before starting the project. one of the chief architects of the future but that future is at least a these shameless defaulters. the Outer Ring Road: since the In Madhyapur Thimi Municipality, plan, can now claim that the road is decade away. D Mahat, Baltimore, USA distribution pipeline for the we have been fighting a losing Kathmandu’s future. No doubt, Bhushan Tuladhar, Melamchi project is being placed battle trying to preserve integrating infrastructure Clean Energy Nepal Shame on you Piyush Amatya for along the periphery of the valley, agricultural land. My concern is development and landpooling, as trying to say that a visa ban on a 50-metre ROW Ring Road might whether the legislative basis will proposed by Thapa, are good ideas l It is interesting to see how defaulters is against the ‘law of the as well be built along the same be laid down to make possible the but it is not clear how he plans to excited local planners and foreign land’ (“Why only pick on me?”, alignment. This project however implementation of a 60:40 ratio do it. donors get over projects in the reminds me of the time when my of green to built-up areas (‘A road Currently there are two schools Kathmandu Valley (‘A road to the father, architect Robert Weise, was to the future’, #228). Instead of of thought on the Outer Ring Road future’, #228). If they showed the called by the Anchaladish to plan containment of urbanisation, we and the demand for transport in same enthusiasm for out the new city of Bharatpur in seem to be heading for more Kathmandu. People in urban development work in other December 1960. When he got chaotic sprawl. Kathmandu want a solution to parts of the country, there there, he was told that the Kai Weise, Kathmandu traffic congestion and people and would be some balanced bulldozers were arriving the very politicians in rural Kathmandu want development that next day and that he should direct l Kishore Thapa’s article on the access and development in their everyone is talking about. them on the alignment of the proposed Outer Ring Road (‘A villages. Both are valid demands, Bhaju Man, roads. During the past 44 years, road to the future’, #228) creates but the Outer Ring Road will serve Kathmandu the planning process doesn’t seem more confusion than provides neither, at least not right now.

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