#579 18 - 24 November 2011 16 pages Rs 30 Nearly there Nepal is taking money away from public welfare to rehabilitate and compensate Maoist warriors. But it may be the price we have to pay for peace. epals leaders spent Many of the provisions the five years since in the 1 November Nthe signing of the agreement (return of seized Comprehensive Peace Accord property, disbanding the (CPA) on 22 November 2006 YCL, decommissioning the Nepali Times arguing over semantics. But it Maoists) are not really new. CPA 5 Special was an excuse to buy time for But the parties now have p12-13 power struggle between and to do in weeks what they COMMENT by within the parties. couldnt do in five years Kul Chandra Gataum Now there is a concrete and try to maximize the GUEST COLUMN by plan and a multi-partisan peace dividend from the commitment to see the Dhana Laxmi Hamal compensation cash. process through. The If the political leaders give major challenge now lies clear guidance, the Special Pro le of ghter- with implementing the Committee can work it all turned-writer, agreement, writes Kul out. The challenge is for the Tara Rai p11 Chandra Gautam in an Maoist-led Ministry of Peace analysis on p12-13, this is and Reconstruction to work Editorial p2 no time to be nit-picking and on the rehabilitation package The 5-year cease re second guessing. without bungling it. BIKRAM RAI 2 EDITORIAL 18 - 24 NOVEMBER 2011 #579 THE FIVE-YEAR CEASEFIRE opes ran high when the top guns in the political deadlock of the past fi ve years. Nepalis want their parties signed an agreement to breathe new life in the politicians to get on with peace and constitution so that Hpeace process last month. The cynics among us said there can be a stable government that can deliver. Public they only did it out of a sense of guilt for having wasted fi ve opinion polls have repeatedly shown the peoples’ main years in senseless bickering. We said this was to appease a concerns are infl ation, lack of basic services, shortage of thoroughly disillusioned public so it would agree to another jobs, and security. What we are dealing with, therefore, extension of the CA term on 30 November. is a serious mismatch between the preoccupation of All that is probably true. The public perception of the politicians and the expectations of the citizens. nation’s elected leaders is at an all time low. The current The last fi ve years since the signing of the CPA has bloated cabinet is proof to many that politicians are only been a case of serial failures of the political leadership interested in a division of the spoils. Prime Minister Baburam to see the larger picture and respond to the popular will. Bhattarai has inexplicably shot himself in the foot by not just The fi rst ray of hope in a long time was the Bhattarai tolerating and coddling crooks in his cabinet, but by pro- government, which is why he needs to get the ship of actively seeking a presidential pardon for a colleague who is state back on track and restore his image and moral a convicted murderer. Bhattarai is in danger of squandering authority. most of the brownie points he earned for integrity and At an interaction in Kathmandu last week, the UN austerity. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the In times like these, it is best to distil everything down Offi ce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the bare essence: fi nding a leader who is partly clean. (OHCHR) and former Guatemalan democracy activist, Little in Nepal these days is black or white, there are no Frank de la Rue, said there are lessons Nepal can learn absolutes. So, we in the media look for the relatively honest from Guatemala. Peace-building, de la Rue pointed out, police chief, the bureaucrat who is comparatively less is as important as peace-making. Guatemala suffers corrupt, the minister who shows a hint of honesty. from the same post-confl ict ills Nepal faces now: the Call it “harm reduction”. A political party may have not rise of impunity, the politicisation of organised crime, the done much while it led a coalition, its ministers may have replacement of war violence with criminal violence. been involved in graft, the prime minister himself may have The only way to deal with this in the short, medium distributed cash from his relief fund to party cronies, but it and long term is by stabilising the politics with a new may still do less harm than the one that openly uses threats, constitution. For that we need closure on the provisions of extortion and violence. the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed this week fi ve Nepal now needs a political evolution of the constitution years ago. The goal is to address the violent legacy of the process so that we conclude the disarmament of Maoist war and bring a party that formerly believed in violence fi ghters, and move towards a pluralistic, democratic society into the political mainstream to guarantee sustained that can bring social justice and economic progress. peace, justice, and development. Only with a strong and This is the reason for the impatience about the political stable state is all this possible. BIKRAM RAI ON THE WEB www.nepalitimes.com LORDS OF IMPUNITY prime minister is astounding. I wish Dixit such as journalist Gyanendra Karki who were zThe editorial started out terrifi c and Thank you Kanak Mani Dixit for standing success as you try to redeem yourself. slaughtered before their families like goats by then descended into wishful and impractical up to these leeches of our society (‘The Parag the party that Baburam provided leadership to. contradictions. What’s with that Costa Rica Lords of Impunity’, #578). I am slowly Dixit and his civil society activists are as guilty of nonsense? It is just a code for turning starting to like you now. Wonder, though, zNepal was sucked into whirlpool of complicity in murder as Baburam and his thugs. Nepal into a de facto Indian state like where are all the well-fed civil society impunity and depravity the day Maoists You championed their ‘liberation ideology’ before Bhutan. losers? were legitimised through ‘free and fair’ the international community and helped foist Sudha Sarath G elections, observed so vigilantly the criminals on us in the name of Janandolan by you and your ‘intellectual’ friends. 2006. zInstead of giving military training to zIf you look at the rank and fi le of the Anish Party Peedit the PLA, they should have given them Maoists, who does not have blood on vocational training so they could start their hands? Same goes for the (Royal) zKanak Mani Dixit is hypocritical. His zThank you Kanak ji for shedding light on the rebuilding what they destroyed during the Nepal Army and the Nepal Police. It is blindness towards India and Girija and true realities of the kind of people Baburam has war. only a matter of who got caught. The company is responsible for the current surrounded himself with. The media is truly a Rajaram Singh Doramba Massacre perpetrated by the situation. When he had the chance to warn his voice for voiceless. Nepal Army is still unresolved. The offi cers Kangresi and Indian friends, he chose to look Tashi Lama zI agree Nepal should gradually are yet to be punished. The criminal case the other way. Now you are crying foul. Ask the downsize its army over a period of 20 of Balkrishna Dhungel is clearly non- Indians: why have they pushed BRB on us? zCan the author name a Nepali politician who years. Nepal’s economy can’t afford to political and he should be punished. After Sudh is not a bandit, reformed or otherwise? have a big army. And we don’t need it. all, Baburam turned out to be as artifi cial Lato Kosero Kamal Kishor as his Mustang. Where is civil society and zGreat article. Dr Bhattarai will never be all those ‘Kira Parosh’ T-shirt walas? counted as a serious politician who will lead zNot long ago Kanak Mani Dixit wrote dire Gaurav Nepal to a new post-confl ict era until he is warnings about the Lumbini project. Now it GOLD RUSH willing to abandon the murderers and thugs is dire warnings against implementing the Great job increasing awareness amongst zThe NC and the UML are as around him. Does Bhattarai have the intellect amnesties required by the peace agreement. all Nepalis (‘Quest for Gold’, Arun Rana, responsible as Kanak Mani Dixit for and the courage to do the right thing for the I wonder what the next dire warnings will be #578) about catch and release fi shing. This bringing parties like the Maoists to the country? His action so far doesn’t seem to about. truly could add to our tourist attraction. mainstream. Baburam as well as his indicate that, but he still has an opportunity to Arthur Niomi Thapa coterie of mainstream parties and NGOs correct himself. But will he? should stop protecting the false victims BNS SOCIAL SECURITY of the war. It is simple: the ones who The direct expenses of the Maoist compensation got booked by the law while trying to kill zNot surprising. Power fl ows from the barrel package is more than Rs 14 billion (‘Social others are not victims, they are murderers. of the gun, is what the Maoists believe and security vs military security’, Editorial, #578).