Khagendra Thapa: Nepal on Fire

24 April 2006

Nepal on Fire By Khagendra Thapa

Before departing from Nepal ,the outgoing ambassador of Russia His Excellency Mr.Valery V. Nazarov wrote to Nepali people ".. may I giveyou friendly advice to show more tolerance, understandingand goodwill towards each other in pursuing your nationalgoals. It is not proper for sons and daughters to argue letalone to quarrel at the bedside of their ill parents. Yourfatherland and motherland - Nepal is seriously ill. The nameof the illness is terrorism. Please stop squabbling and joinhands in combating this deadly common menace together. Yourhome - Nepal is in flames, and the primary task of all theinhabitants is to extinguish the fire, to save the peopleand to do away with the incendiaries - not to argue on howand who can do it better."

Ambassador Nazarov, a truefriend of Nepali people, stated it appropriately. It is timeto have flexibility in our stands and stop fighting amongourselves. If we continue to fight among ourselves, the daywill come when we will have to regret that our enemies havetaken advantage of the situation and our motherland may notbe there. Our forefathers such as Bhakti Thapa fought hardagainst the colonialist to keep our motherland free fromforeign invaders. He fought back at the age of 70 withkhukuris and stones against a well armed enemy. We need toremember the facts of our history and our glory and we needto be united otherwise we will be finished as a nation andas a people.

How did get where we aretoday?

During the Panchayat period, the so calledPanchas concentrated on enriching themselves and as long asthey show their loyalty to the King they could get away withany kind of corruption or fraud and sometimes even criminalactivities. Corruption was not really open and was limitedto small amounts and was hidden. Most development works werelimited to cities. However, it was during this period thatthe East-West High way was completed in addition to manyother road projects such as Prithvi high way, It failed tobe an all inclusive in terms of the distribution ofresources. Some regions such as the far western regions wereexcluded in any kind of development activities. It alsofailed to reach out to all disadvantaged ethnicgroups.

Eventually, it was the excesses of the supposedlya loyal group to the King called Mandales which wasresponsible in triggering the 1990 protest against the Kingwhich brought the political change of 1990. This forced theking out of the active politics and following the draftingof new constitution and general elections, Nepali CongressParty headed by Girija Koirala came to power.

Multiparty Government Failed to Punish CorruptPanchas

Following the revolt, Panchayat rule was endedand an interim government headed by Krishna Prasad Bhattaraiwas installed. In the meantime, a commission headed byMallik was formed to examine and identify the corruptcriminals during the Panchayat period. The commissionprepared an extensive report. The report was never madepublic and both Bhattarai and Girija failed to implement andpunish the Panche criminals. This really angered many peopleincluding the cadres of various political parties includingthe congress party who participated in the violentdemonstrations to bring about the 1990 political change.However, no one dared to question Girija for he was the newking in the Himalayan Kingdom. Girija was supposedly ademocratically elected prime minister. There are threefundamental tenets of democracy namely: 1. rule of law, 2.transparency and 3. accountability. Girija already violateda basic tenet of democracy that is transparency by failingto first make the report public and secondly he refused toimplement it. Consequently most corrupt and hated Panchassuch as Navaraj Subedi went unpunished with the millions ofrupees of looted money.

After three general elections withno government able to serve the complete five year term andpolitical parties and their bosses concentrating more onpersonal financial and political gain, Maoists insurgentsstarted armed revolt from the western remote districts in1996. Maoists started the revolt with their forty populardemands which were mostly justified. At the beginning,people liked what Maoists were doing and had a lot ofsupporters. However, now their demands have been reduced toone that is the election of a constituent assembly whichwill supposedly draft a new constitution. Maoists becameunpopular among the people primarily because of threefactors viz: 1. brutal killing of innocent villagers, 2.extortion, and 3. destruction of infrastructure. It is to benoted that Maoists have not killed a single corruptofficials or politicians. They have also abducted schoolchildren and villagers and use them as human shields duringtheir attacks against security forces.

When Prime MinisterDeuba was about to face the vote of no confidence inparliament in 2002, he dissolved the parliament and agreedto hold elections within six months as required under 1990constitution. In order to maximize his chances of winningthe elections he also dissolved the elected local governmentbodies. He wanted to change the outcome of the elections byhaving his own supporters at the local level. Local levelgovernments play an important role in winning elections bymanipulating the votes and voters. Elections in Nepal havenever been fair. Spending of tremendous amounts of corruptmoney by incumbent candidates was a common practice. Thereare no term limits. Contrary to the democratic principle ofone person one vote, the party leaders were allowed to runfor elections from more than one constituency. For example,Girija Koirala always ran both from Morang district andSunsari district. In addition, there are no primaryelections. One can only run for parliament if the party bosslike Gririja or Madhav Nepal issue a party ticket.Therefore, you either have to bribe the party leader or onehas to be relative of party boss in order to run for theparliament. My own relative in Congress Party was deniedticket by Girija because she refused to bribe him. On theother hand, if you are an extremely corrupt politician andhave collected a lot of money, party leader will give aticket without any questions.

When Deuba failed to holdthe general elections within six months as required by theconstitution, king Gyanendra dismissed him and asked thepolitical parties to forward a clean person to be appointedprime minister. It is interesting to note that there wasvirtually no opposition even by political parties when theking sacked Deuba in October 2002. After successivegovernments failed to hold the national elections and settlethe insurgency problem, King Gyanendra dismissed thegovernment appointed by himself in February 2005 and tookthe executive power and declared a state of emergency in thecountry. He said that he was going to curb corruption andsolve the insurgency problem.

Since people were fed upwith the corruption and incompetence of the politicalparties and their leaders, majority of the people includingmyself supported the King s takeover. The King also came upwith 21 point program which made people very hopeful aboutthe King s plan to restore democracy within threeyears.

How did the King Fail to Deliver?

No Homeworkbefore Action

First of all, the king had not done thenecessary homework before he acted. He had no plan ofaction. He obviously was not prepared for the massive taskhe undertook. Even Nepal s long time friends the UnitedStates and UK did not approve of his actions forget aboutthe immediate neighbor in the south. Worst of all, the veryperson who asked the political parties to send clean personas prime minister and the very person who promised to fightcorruption not only appointed corrupt individuals but alsothe convicted criminals in his government. When he appointedthe corrupt criminals who were called Mandales duringPanchayat era, people started to doubt the sincerity of theKing. Many people had doubts as to the real intentions ofthe King s takeover. He did not bring competent, clean andqualified people to implement his 21 point program.

Aboveall, the King had very poor public relations. Consequently,he increasingly isolated himself internationally. Hisincompetent and stupid ministers were more of a liabilitythan assets. He has practically no support left among thecomity of nations. People got very frustrated when he failedto curb corruption and control insurgency. His attempt tohold local level elections in the municipalities also failedto impress people since most of the political partiesboycotted elections because they were going to lose bigtime. Maoists threat of violence and the murder of thecandidates by the insurgents really prevented people fromparticipating in the election.

The King even failed toconvince the so called royalist parties to participate inthe elections. To make matters worse, India engineered thetwelve point agreement between the seven political partiesand the Maoists. This gave a real boost to the status ofboth the insurgency and the seven political parties in theeyes of the people. Now the nationwide unrest called by theseven parties and assisted by Maoist has put the country onthe fire.

King Failed to Punish CorruptLeaders

When the King took power in Feb. 1, 2005,people had high hopes that he will arrest and persecute allthose government officials as well as the political leaderswho had collected massive amount of money during the period1990-2002. People wanted that money to be confiscated.However, the King did not initiate any action against them.The commission he created was unable to carry out itscharge. The commission was dismantled by the Supreme Court.Now the corrupt individuals, with the blessings of thepolitical parties, are financing the current unrest againstthe King.

Losers Became Heroes

Thanks to theinability of the King to deliver what he promised on Feb. 1,2005, the leaders of the political parties who were hated bythe people prior to 2005, have once again become heroes. Thepeople who did not care about human rights during the timethey were in power have become great proponents of humanrights. The same leaders who now chant the mantra ofdemocracy did not have any respect for democracy when theywere in power. Did they follow the rule of law? Were theytransparent in what their party did? Are they accountablefor what happened to the country and the people? Were theyable to solve the Bhutanese refugees problem? Why did notGirija block border with India when thousands of refugeespassed through the Indian territory to come to Nepal?Refugees go to a bordering country and not the country whichhas no common border. If Girija had the ability to think,Nepal would never have to face the Bhutanese refugeeproblem? Why did the democratically elected governmentignore the 40 point demands put forward by the Maoists? Mostof those demands were reasonable. However, the new electedkings of Nepal did not want to listen to anything that didnot benefit themselves or their political parties. Theyignored ideas of small parties as if they were little kids.When the Maoists started armed insurgency, theyunsuccessfully tried to crush them. If the king gives uppower now, I wonder how the political parties and theMaoists are going to operate. I bet they will be back tosquare one.

Unrest has Hit the Poor PeopleHard

The nationwide unrest has really hit the poorpeople very hard. Over a million people are internallydisplaced in Nepal due to ten year old insurgency. Most ofthe displaced people have moved to the cities as internalrefugees. In order to survive, they have to work whole dayso that they can feed the family. As a result of the unrestin major cities of the country, these displaced people aswell as the poor people who were already in the cities areliving without food. To make matters worse, even the middleclass is feeling the pain. They are running out of food andcooking gas. Those who have invested in businesses arelosing money everyday. They cannot attend to socialactivities. They could not perform planned weddingceremonies because they cannot travel.

MovementCannot be Suppressed

Unlike the 1990 movement, thismovement is very different in that it is supported andactively participated by armed guerrillas. It is not justlimited to big cities. It is practically nationwide. TheKing has no support left. If the movement continues anyfurther, it is likely that the soldiers and police willrefuse to take orders from the officers and commanders.Firing at civilians involved in peaceful protest is notacceptable. Killing of civilians will make matters evenworst. It will be like adding fuel to the fire. If the Kingwants to preserve the monarchy, he has very few optionsleft. He has no one to blame other than himself and hisfoolish ministers and other crooks who are profiting fromthe current situation.

Possible Solution

Onepossible solution would be for the King to revive theparliament dissolved by the Deuba government and ask them tohold the general election within a specified time period.This will put the responsibility of running the country andsolving the insurgency problem back to the soldiers of thepolitical parties. The minute he does that the politicalparties will be back to each others throat again. Hopefully,this time around their allies the Maoists will help out.

In order to save his face the King could put thefollowing condition to the political parties so that theyare more democratic and more responsible to thepeople:

1. No one can run for parliament from more thanone constituency

2. There must be spending limit duringthe election of parliament by each candidate. For example,they cannot spend more than what they can earn as a memberof parliament during the five years they aremembers.

3. There must be a term limit so that a personcannot be a member of parliament for more than two termsi.e. ten years.

4. There must be complete transparency inthe financial transactions of political parties as well ascandidates. Party income and expenditures must be madepublic and must be audited by an independent auditingagency. Complete democracy as demanded by the politicalparties cannot be achieved without complete transparency andaccountability.

5. There must be a provision to recall amember of parliament if 67% of the voters disagree with hisor her performance.

6. Each political party and itsleaders must be accountable for their actions. If they wantto demonstrate in streets, then the financial loss incurredby the citizens as result of their actions must be paid bythe parties.

7. There must be primary elections to qualifyas to who can run for the member of the parliament so thatthere is no need to bribe a leader to get aticket.

8. Anyone who is convicted criminal must not beallowed to vote even if the person has completed the jailsentence. Such criminals must not be allowed to run for anykind of elections.

9. Form a commission to investigate andreport the excesses done by the political leaders, theirrelatives, and government employees (including police andarmy) after 1990. Persecute and take away all the ill-gottenwealth from everyone without any fear and favor.

10. Persecute those who were mentioned in Malik reportand punish them appropriately.

AlternativeSolution

The alternative solution may be to ask thepolitical parties as well as the Maoists to form a coalitiongovernment which will uphold the above mentioned criteriaand hold general elections within a specified time period.This might be more difficult to achieve under thecircumstances.

*************

Dr. Khagendra Thapa is a professor at FerrisState University in Michigan, USA.

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