#327 15 - 21 December 2006 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 327 Q. How is the country doing today compared with before 24 April 2006? Total votes: 4,605 Makeshift peace Weekly Internet Poll # 328. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Do you think the interim constitution will be finalised before year-end? EMPTY HUTS: Everyday a new camp to house 10 fighters is built at the Dasratpur cantonment site. The camps, which number nearly 100, are empty. NARESH NEWAR NARESH NEWAR in SURKHET Maoists themselves are getting even battle-hardened guerrillas together it will be villagers living impatient with the lack of found conditions too rough in outside camps who will have to t is the price the Nepali facilities. the camp and moved to farmers’ bear the burden of taking care of people have come to pay for When Pushpa Kamal Dahal homes in Dasratpur. the Maoists. But most are I peace: a messy, undefined, tells the prime minister and the This is creating problems for philosophical about it. “We have under-funded, and half-hearted UN in Kathmandu to speed up villagers who have to house up to fed them all these years, it is effort to confine the Maoists and arms management, he is eight Maoists each. We asked Bir nothing new,” rues Dasratpur their arms. responding to increasing pressure Bhusal, a local shopkeeper, how farmer Bishnu Barlami Magar, A visit to a Maoist cantonment from cadre like those here in long he could go on like this. even though there at Dasratpur, north of Surkhet, western Nepal who are getting “What do you want us to say,” he are armed Maoists Editorial p2 showed how everyone is just frustrated with roughing it in the retorted sarcastically, “what can within earshot. House trained going through the motions of cold and damp of primitive camps you do about it anyway?” It seems that arms management. Meanwhile, such as in Dasratpur. The Maoist commanders have the villagers are losing their the Maoists have yet to release the Dozens of female guerrillas no idea how long they will have earlier fear of the guerrillas. The young villagers forcibly recruited who have recently given birth are to be in camps. Their leaders have Maoists no longer force villagers in recent months to bolster their worried about the health of their told them to endure hardship for to feed them since they now have numbers in the camps. Locals are babies and have gone to their some more time and that rations, but there is resentment still forced to support fighters home villages in surrounding everything will be taken care of about Maoist demands for with food and shelter, and the districts. After this week’s rains, “once we are in government”. But firewood and water. for now, the commanders say they A group of frustrated villagers need better housing, health approached a visiting journalist services, sanitation, and facilities and asked if it was possible to get for those with families. word up to move the Maoist It is clear that until the UN cantonment further from their and the government get their act village. Full story p4 2 EDITORIAL 15 - 21 DECEMBER 2006 #327 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit Executive Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Desk Editor: Jemima Sherpa Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Rupendra Kayastha Director Sales and Marketing: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: [email protected] For Subscriptions: 5011628/29 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur [email protected] GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 Debunking myths www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 …of the constituent assembly versus the status quo Myth 1: The Maoists first The main stumbling blocks in the 204 seats, it will be the HOUSE TRAINED raised the constituent drafting a peoples’ constitution political parties who will No need to be overly distraught over the delay in the adoption of the assembly demand. have always been the palace and distribute those seats to interim constitution. It will happen, just as surely as the constituent Wrong. In 1950, the new Nepali the NC. The palace’s resistance is communities based on their share assembly polls will be held. The question to ask is: will the final communists believed a understandable because a new of the national population. In document reflect the values of pluralism we all expect it to? constitution written by the constitution could abolish the short, 409 of the 425 members of The eight-point agreement fell victim to Maoist brinkmanship in people should form the basis of monarchy. But why should the the assembly will be party cadre. a farcical constituent drafting exercise. Egged on by over- enthusiastic members of civil society, the revived parliament was power-sharing. The NC supported NC be against it? Because even The assembly will not be an almost undone without a credible institution to take its place. it initially. The wily King today its leadership remains a assembly of the people, it will be After that experience the parties will be careful to ensure that Tribhuban agreed and then party of narrow and vested an assembly of the parties. What the draft interim constitution will adhere to democratic tenets. The backtracked. His son and interests dominated by eastern change can we expect from such good news is that responsible and thoughtful second rank party bahuns. a body? leadership is involved in the process, and they will prevent it from The saving grace about the Questions of identity which meandering all over the map as the previous attempt by a committee GUEST COLUMN NC today is that its leaders lurk in the minds of all excluded Sheetal Kumar led by former justice Laxman Aryal did. finally recognised that times communities could again be The draft interim constitution has to be promulgated by the have changed. The Maoists used sidelined because parties, which sitting parliament, a good decision for which Speaker Subhas grandsons, who would directly violence and clever politicking see themselves as national, are Nembang is at least partly responsible. This may mean discussion rule Nepal for another 35 years to make the constituent unable to contemplate on the draft articles, and that the final document which emerges will have the imprimatur of the most representative after his death, were never assembly not just their demand communal, cultural and regional body in the land and peopled by interested in a people’s but the demand of all excluded identities. The coming legislators who were actually elected, constitution. communities. The NC’s response constituent assembly poll is even if long ago. The demand for a to this ranks as one of the most going to be about identity: As we bid goodbye to the third constituent assembly astute bargains in modern communal, regional and, parliament which put the stamp of was again raised by Nepali history: it would agree to eventually, national. legitimacy on the achievements of the the communists in hold a constituent assembly The Madhesi and Janajati ‘People’s Movement’ and channeled its 1990 after Jana election, but only if the Maoists activism we see today is energy in a positive direction, we can Andolan I. But the gave up violence and intertwined with the identity only hope that the successor legislature idea was slapped participated in mainstream question. Why would these with 75 unelected Maoist members will down by the NC politics. Of course, an obstinate groups now trust the very parties continue the tradition. Pushpa Kamal Dahal and his troika and dictatorial monarchy who have ignored their colleagues are pushing for the detailed leadership. The facilitated this process. aspirations for so long? For the interim constitution, but maybe there is parties ultimately Myth 2: The proposed Madhesis in particular, electing no need to draft a new, lengthy settled on a hand- constituent assembly will assemblymen and women from constitution if it was a transitional picked resolve all problems. the same constituencies statute to serve the polity till elections in constitution A careful reading of the originally drawn up in 1990 is the spring. drafting 8 November agreement between meaningless because it fails to It’s possible the shrill Maoist committee. the seven parties and the reflect the demography of the demands that the constituent assembly The fruit of Maoists shows that the tarai. Unless the constituencies elections must be held as scheduled will their labour (which constituent assembly will be are scientifically delineated dissipate as soon as the interim constitution is several drafters would, held according to a mixed again, no CA is going to be adopted and the comrades become ‘house- trained’. The Maoist leaders will have concluded until as recently as last year, electoral system: 205 elected proportional in their eyes. in the past months that their chances of a good boast was the “best from current constituencies on a Rushing headlong into polls showing in the polls are, under current constitution in the world”) first-past-the-post basis, and without addressing these issues circumstances, slim. The reasonable people of was promulgated in another 204 on a proportional raises the risk of igniting other Nepal did not appreciate the violence and threats, November 1990 without any basis. The agreement does not conflicts. It took nearly 60 years and they need time to heal. broad-based people’s define constituencies, and it is and more than 13,000 lives to The challenge in this extended transitional consultation. assumed that the same 205 accept the assembly demand first phase will be to maintain the momentum for The Maoists’ parliamentary constituencies raised in 1950. If we don’t do it social and political change, and ensure that the contribution has been to which perpetuated exclusion in right this time, who knows how people see the state returning to the districts.