UML TASK FORCE, MAOITS MEET; OTHER DETAILS

By Bhola B. Rana

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: A UML task force and a Maoist team with Chairman Prachanda held 45-minute discussion at Singha Durbar Monday on the delayed government expansion and a controversial 7-point secret agreement between chairmen of the two communist parties which sealed the election of Jhalanath Khanal as prime minister 3 February.
But Khanal, who participated in the talks, hasn’t succeeded in expanding his 4-member cabinet UML representatives only.
Work on government expansion and constitution drafting have been obstructed.
Prachanda made no comment after the talks.
But Maoist General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal said leaders of the two parties agreed to end the current extended deadlock with UPCP((Maoist) refusing to join government without UML position on the 7-point agreement which Maoists insist should be implemented.
The two parties also agreed to find an ‘agreement acceptable to all.”
Maoists are also demanding the home ministry portfolio promised by Khanal to UCPN(Maoist) amid strong objection in the party standing committee.
UML politburo meets later Monday and the central committee Tuesday to discuss government expansion and the 7-point agreement as Maoists
await the outcome.
‘UML central committee is meeting. Let’s hope the central committee will be clear on the agreement and peace and constitution will get a boost as expected as envisaged in the agreement,” Prachanda said Sunday
blaming some ‘rotten elements’ in Khanal’s party for the deadlock.
“If the seven-point agreement is amended or attempts are made
to amend it, we can’t support the present government. If that happens, the government will immediately fall,” the Maoist chief warned.
Meanwhile, NC President Sushil Koirala, speaking in Nepalgunj Monday, said the political crisis will continue until the 7-point is scraped and rejected immediate inter-party talks.
He said a war mentality persists in Maoists.
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SHORTCUT TO CONSTITUTIONDRAFTING

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Chairman Subash Nemwang has justified the means to achieve the end of promulgating a delayed constitution by 28 May.
Nemwang said the eight weeks set aside for collecting public opinion has to be curtailed
“I can say one thing for certain. The much time set aside for gong to the people [with the people] can’t be given,” he told Annapurna Post.
Eight weeks had been set aside for taking a constitution draft prepared by the constituent assembly (CA) to the people; a final draft of a basic law was to be drafted incorporated the suggestions.
Differences on contentious issues have been identified, he said.
‘Parties should concentrate their attention on them and come to a conclusion. We don’t have much time,” Nemwang, who is also the parliament speaker said.
He made no comment on Maoist Prachanda’s proposal the tenure of the CA should be extended two months after 28 May to complete a constitution draft amid fears the extended one-year deadline won’t be met.
The elected assembly failed to draft a constitution in two years.
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UNMIN HASN’T HANDED OVER ALL LOGISTICS SUPPORT TO GOVT. ;MONITORING HAMPERED

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: As stated, UNMIN hasn’t handed over all logistics support to government after withdrawing from Nepal 15 January after a failed mission.
It’s closing all offices by 15 April.
Government had asked UN to handover logistics to Nepal to help monitor Maoist weapons and fighters.
“We are facing difficulties in monitoring former fighter in satellite camps because 40 vehicles at with the Indian embassy,” a member of the secretariat under a special committee headed by the prime minister told your blogger.
He said the Indian government gave the vehicles to monitor fighters and arms locked up in28 cantonments and satellite camps.
The weapons are now under watch of teams consisting of members of three state security agencies and Maoists after UNMN withdrawal.
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MAOIST LAWMAKER DEAD

Kathmandu, 21 Feb. Maoist lawmaker Guuri Shanker Khadka, 51, died Monday.
He was suffering bone cancer.
Khadka was elected from Jhapa No.2 constituency, Jhapa, and was central leader of the UCPN (Maoist).
Following his death, the strength of the constituent assembly/parliament is 598.
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NEPAL MISSION IN CAIRO ASKED TO FOLLOW LIBYA DEVELOPMENTS

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Foreign Ministry ahs asked the embassy in Cairo to follow developments in neighboring Libya and consult other embassies of SAARC countries to help Nepali workers in the embattled north African state, a foreign ministry official said.
An estimated 2,000 Nepalis work in Libya.
Foreign ministry has directed Nepalis not to participate in
anti-government protests.
Another 40,000 Nepalis work also work in Bahrin where unrest spread from Tunisia and Egypt.
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THREE KILLED WITH AGRICULTURAL TOOL

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Three persons were stabbed with a khurpi [a sharp agricultural tool] and another was seriously injured at Damauli in Tanahu Monday.
A couple was among the killed.
The wife of Debi Ram Shrestha, killed in the stabbing, was injured
Debi Rana Magar has been arrested.
Damauli was tense after the triple murders.
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POLICE, STUDENTS CLASH IN CAPITAL

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Students of Pashupati Campus at Chabahil fought pitched battles with police who entered the campus lobbing teargas shells after entering the campus Monday.
Dozens of policemen and students were injured.
Clashes erupted after a tanker overran two persons in front of the campus.
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NEW CASINO GUIDELINE COMING

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Delay in paying royalty to the government could prove costly for casinos henceforth, The Kathmandu Post reports.
With Parliament’s Public Account Committee (PAC) instructing the government to come up with regulatory framework to regulate casinos, the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) has prepared a draft guidelines on casinos which says that casinos have to put up a collateral worth equivalent to the two years’ royalty while acquiring operating licence.As casinos were found to be reluctant in paying royalty and other dues to the government, the proposal of collateral was floated, said a ministry official. “The rationale behind the new provision is to ensure royalty compliance,” said a ministry official. “If a casino defaults on royalty payment, the government will seize its collateral.” Currently, casinos have to pay an annual royalty of Rs 20 million.
The guidelines, which are currently under discussion, say that the operating license can be renewed every two years. The government, through the budget, has made it mandatory for casinos to get their licences renewed every year. As per the Finance Bill, casinos failing to clear their royalties by mid-January will lose their licences. A gambling house that loses its licence will have to start afresh to obtain a new one.
The new guidelines also talk about allowing Nepali citizens in casinos. However, only big taxpayers (those having an annual turnover of Rs 250 million) will be allowed in casinos. The Department of Revenue Investigation will provide data of those big taxpayers. Casinos should issue memberships to these people, says the proposed guideline. However, they have to pay an entry fee of Rs 5,000 for 24 hours.
According to the draft guidelines, casino operators have to submit their detailed business and investment plan to the government to obtain licence. With most of the casinos relying on Nepali citizens, the guidelines say that casinos should come up with tourism packages to attract foreign clients. Casinos should register their infrastructure —from furniture to gaming machines at the ministry and should have ministry’s stickers pasted on them.
The ministry will supervise casinos every three months and will be entrusted with the whole job of monitoring them, according to the guideline. In order to regulate and enforce the guidelines, plain-cloth police personnel will also be mobilised in casinos. Hotels had been complaining that surprise police raids had terrified their clients.
The DRI had recommended the ministry to shut eight casinos failing to pay their royalty dues on time. The ministry has not been able to take a decision in this regard because of the delay in the Cabinet formation.
The DRI on Feb. 13 had dispatched a letter to the ministry asking it to shut down Casino Rad, Casino Venus, Casino Grand, Casino Royale, Casino Anna, Casino Shangri-La, Fulbari Casino and Casino Nepal after they failed to clear their outstanding royalties and dues within the 35-day deadline set by the department.
Of the 10 casinos currently operating in the country, only two—Casino Tara at Hotel Hyatt Regency and Casino Everest at Hotel Everest—have cleared their dues.
In a bid to regulate the casino business, PAC issued a series of directives to the government—from drafting a Casino Act and working procedure for casinos to amending the existing Gambling Act. PAC had directed the government on Dec. 28 to scrap operating licences of casinos that fail to clear their dues within 35 days. The DRI, based on PAC’s directive, had issued a strong notice to all the defaulting casinos asking them to either clear their dues or face cancellation of their operating licenses.
Following the PAC directives, five casinos—Casino Tara, Casino Rad, Casino Venus, Casino Grand and Casino Shangri-La—paid their royalties for the current fiscal year. However, except for Casino Tara, the other four have been recommended for action by the DRI. Three casinos—Casino Venus, Casino Rad and Casino Grand—have been recommended for action as they have not cleared their interest payment for the current fiscal year even though they paid the royalty for the current fiscal year.
According to the DRI, these eight casinos still owe Rs 355 million to the government. Despite constant pressure of revenue enforcement agencies, Casino Anna and Casino Nepal have not settled their dues. These two casinos owe Rs 244 million. Likewise, Casino Fulbari still has to pay Rs 62.1 million.
The government, for the last six months, has been tightening the screw against casinos after their repeated failure to clear royalties and dues. Continued defiance by casinos of government orders to clear their dues and bar Nepalis from entering their premises forced the government and PAC even to explore the possibility of moving them out of Kathmandu.
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ARYAL QUITS; DIFFERENCES WITH CJ

Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: Following serious differences with Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha on the issue of taking action against Supreme Court Justice Balaram KC, senior advocate Shree Hari Aryal today quit his post, The HImalayanTimes reports.

Seriously objecting to the CJ’s inaction, Aryal returned the certificate of senior advocate in SC because of an order against him for ‘obstructing’ a sub-judice case against former minister and Nepali Congress leader Chiranjivi Wagle at the SC.

This is the first time in the country’s judicial history that a senior advocate has returned his prestigious title in a tussle with a judge. His strong protest came at a time when the SC was doing its final homework on pronouncing its verdict testing the six-year-old Special Court graft case conviction against Wagle.

A division bench of Chief Justice Shrestha and senior most justice Khil Raj Regmi had scheduled its final verdict for March 16 to test the Special Court verdict, which slapped two-and-half year sentence on Wagle and fined him Rs 2.72 million for accumulating disproportionate property when he was in political power after 1990. In addition, he has to pay another 27.5 million rupees.

Wagle is allied to former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Aryal was the chief legal adviser of Nepali Congress (Democratic) when it split from Nepali Congress in 2001.

While returning the title conferred upon him on April 1, 2005, Aryal also communicated to the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) that he had given up its membership with the accusation that the SC had not taken up his issue seriously. Also the General Secretary of Transparency International Nepal, Aryal had submitted letters to the CJ, NBA and SCBA twice demanding action against Justice KC. Following the order of a division bench of justices KC and Krishna Prasad Upadhayaya on August 17, which drew the attention of the CJ against KC’s allegation over his obstruction of justice, Aryal had been opposing KC’s order.

“My voice was not heeded despite my requests, therefore I could not tolerate activities that went against my dignity and honour of title of senior advocate. Henceforth, I return this certificate with respect,” Aryal said in his letter today.

During the hearing on August 17, he had sought that the apex court test the authenticity of a document he produced in Wagle’s case, the bench rejected it but wrote to the CJ drawing the attention of the latter, terming Aryal’s action an obstruction in the process of justice dispensation.

Hemanta Rawal, assistant spokesperson, SC, said the apex court had conferred the title with his consent as per Section 21 of Nepal Bar Council Act 1993, therefore it was up to him whether or not to keep it. Secretary of SCBA Megh Raj Pokhrel, however, said Aryal’s licence of advocate will not remain effective after he gives up the title of senior advocate.
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NEPALI WORKERS BEING SENT BACK FROM MALAYSIA
MALAYSIA CONTINUES TO RETURN WORKERS

Kathmandu, 21 Feb. Even as Malaysia -- where one third of Nepali migrants are currently working -- assured a Nepali delegation that it would not return any Nepali worker with minor health problems, Nepali employees, who pass medical tests in their home country before flying overseas, continue to receive step-brotherly treatment, Om Astha Rai Rai writes in Republica.

According to foreign employment agencies, many Nepali workers, who passed medical tests conducted by authorized health institutions in Nepal, have been forced to return home over the last couple of months.

“Five Nepali workers who landed in Malaysia through my own agency have been sent back,” said Kumud Khanal, general secretary of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA). “Dozens of other Nepali workers who went to Malaysia through other agencies have also been returned.”

Malaysian authorities during a meeting with Nepali delegation -- which comprised officials from the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) and the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) as well as members of the NAFEA and the Nepal Health Professional Federation (NHPF) -- in November had officially assured that they would not return Nepali workers with medical reports showing calcification on chest. Similarly, they had promised to not return Nepali employees without precisely stating the reasons for their “unsuitability”.

“Of late, Malaysia has begun stating reasons for a worker´s unsuitability,” said Khanal. “However, Malaysia still continues to return Nepali employees with medical reports showing calcification on chest. Two of the five returnees, who had been sent by our company, had the same problem.”

Calcification is the process in which calcium salts build up in soft tissue, causing it to harden. However, most Malaysian institutes, as Khanal says, often mistake it as an early sign of tuberculosis.

Khadga Bahadur Shrestha, president of NHPF, claimed that Malaysia has been returning Nepali workers in spite of its assurance. “I don´t know why, but Malaysia has not kept its own promise,” Shrestha told Republica.

From November of 2008 to October of 2010, a total of 488 workers, who landed in Malaysia after passing medical tests in Nepal, were forced to return after they failed medical tests in Malaysia. Of them, only 25 workers were unfit when they went through similar medical tests after returning to Nepal. “This problem continues to exist,” Shrestha said.

Dr Damodar Pokharel, Vice-chancellor of National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), who was also a member of the Nepali delegation, says, “Malaysia, like any other country, can not send back workers just because their medical reports show calcification on chest. However, if they are returning Nepali workers with other serious health problems, then we should understand there are flaws in our own system of conducting medical examinations.”

Nepali workers spend up to Rs 100,000 to get a menial job in Malaysia. However, they run the risk of losing their hard-earned money if they fail medical tests there. Although the NHPF provides compensation to the returnees, it is too little, and often uncertain.

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TAKING IN THE TIBET TANGLE



Kathmandu, 21 Feb.: In terms of damage control, the past week was hectic if not exactly hysterical. The taming of the Jhala Nath Khanal government required the denial of the home and defense portfolios to his Maoist patrons. Infuriated, the ex-rebels vowed not to join the government, a posture that served to expose both the peace and revolt camps within the party. But since the Maoists initially didn’t fully comprehend the Nepali Congress’ ability or willingness to step in and save Khanal, if so required, they started having second thoughts, Maile Baje writes in Nepali Netbook..
As for Khanal, the fact that the Maoists – and not he – characterized his government as anti-Indian gained traction. Once in power, there was little else the prime minister could do but seek New Delhi’s goodwill and support. In his first extensive interview with an Indian newspaper, Khanal seemed to make the right noises about respecting India’s security interests.
By envisaging Cambodia as his first foreign destination, the prime minister sought to maintain symbolic adherence to the image of Nepali ingenuity the Maoists created for him – and perhaps more, given our extended parallels with that South East Asian nation.
Nepalis, however, Maila Baje feels, must brace for a larger fight looming on the horizon, which has little to do with the new constitution. Although everyone is tiptoeing around the Tibet issue, Nepal is likely to face far greater convulsions than those created by the Khampa Rebellion over a generation ago.
The Achilles’ heel of a rising and assertive China, Tibet has entered the crosshairs of hardliners in India who are seeking a showdown in pursuit of other aspects of the Sino-Indian bilateral relationship. Predictions of war in 2012 made by a leading Indian strategic analyst continue to roil Beijing amid the approaching 50th anniversary of the ‘lesson’ it believed it taught New Delhi.
New Delhi, which never reconciled itself to Beijing’s incorporation of Tibet, is sensitized by continuing revelations of vast mineral wealth in the region and China’s drive to harness it for military as well as economic purposes. The Chinese, for their part, recognize how fast the Naxalites insurgency has flared across regions of India that are rich in mineral resources. Could the Indian Maoists be stopped from the turbulent and resource-rich northeast, home to myriad other uprisings?
As they seek to preempt an escalation of the threat from Nepal to Tibet, the Chinese have been dropping off hints on how an unstable Nepal could inflame insurgencies in India, not necessarily limited to the Maoist variant.
For the Americans, the abandonment of the Khampas was not universally popular. If anything, much of the original justification for backing the Tibetan resistance retains its relevance. One group of veterans made a public display of their enduring fealty by commemorating the site at Camp Hale in Colorado where the original Khampa warriors were trained.
Still, the Chinese and Indians see stark incongruities. As President Barack Hussein Obama’s administration all but welcomed the military coup in Egypt as a democratic alternative to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year regime, parts of the world saw the triumphalism as emblematic of declining American power. Weeks earlier, Obama hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao at a White House state dinner with much fanfare, during which a key attraction was an anti-American anthem going back to the Korean War.
In the eyes of Rush Limbaugh, the leading conservative American radio commentator, the toasting of Hu represented a far vulgar display. Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner (Obama) feted the jailer of this year’s laureate (Liu Xiaobo) in the presence of another former laureate (Jimmy Carter).
Beijing, which funds the massive American deficit spending, saw how Obama, on the eve of his visit to China in 2009, refused to meet with the Dalai Lama in Washington. When U.S.-Chinese tensions escalated the following year, Obama did receive the Dalai Lama at the White House but made the Tibetan spiritual leader leave from the backdoor, sidestepping bulky trash bags.
Indian hardliners itching for a fight with China acknowledge they cannot count on the Americans. Nor do they seem to want to. Standing up to China on Tibet as an equal will have a palliative effect on the 1962 psyche. It would force the Chinese to understand the power and potential the Indians have accumulated over half a century.
In one sense, both putative belligerents could benefit from the Americans hedging their bets, with Beijing relishing it as an endorsement of its comprehensive national power and New Delhi as a justification of its pursuit of strategic autonomy. Does all this sound convoluted? Whoever said our geopolitics were any simpler than our politics?
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60 LOST YEARS

Kathmandu, 21 Feb: Sixty years ago democracy was heralded in this country. Nepalis were ecstatic that the country would make rapid strides in all aspects of life. Alas, nothing of the kind happened. We are still fed the empty rhetoric politicians used to issue then. The government is treating what should have been Diamond Jubilee celebrations on February 19 in a routine and ritualistic manner without the fervor the Day actually deserves, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review..

The few that have gained personal benefits assert that many swift changes have taken place. However, we were one of the poorest countries then and we continue to be so even in the second decade of the 21st century. Blame game has been a typical trait of Nepali politicians who do nothing but pass the buck to someone else.

The first cabinet formed under the last Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher in 1951 had Nepali Congress leader B.P. Koirala as the home minister. There were criticisms that a commoner did not head the cabinet. But B.P. Koirala defended it saying that it was a compromise for ensuring a smooth transition while his opponents thought that he was so keen to join the cabinet that better considerations were swept aside.

Law and order deteriorated; Bharat Shumsher's "Khukuri Dal" created a terror in the capital and many other parts of the kingdom. Large demonstrations were organized at the home minister's residence at Tripureshwar, whereby Koirala and others resorted to firing, killing at least one and injuring a number of others. In the cabinet, Rana faction and the NC group accused each other of not cooperating.

Since the conflict between the two groups showed no sign of abating, the inevitable happened. The cabinet collapsed amidst ugly mutual recriminations between the opposing sides in what was supposed to be a unity government. King Tribhuvan appointed Nepali Congress President Matrika Prasad Koirala, B.P. Koirala's elder brother, the new prime minister.

Most people took the appointment as natural and logical as Matrika Koirala was the commander of the 1950-51 democratic revolution, having been given the title "Dictator" for the movement period. But personal ambitions play their own part, at times affecting the national political process. The rift between the Koirala brothers that developed on account of their personal ambitions amply proved this. The younger brother raised the issue of "one individual one post".

Matrika Koirala rejected his ambitious younger brother's stand and the latter, mobilizing the majority support he had in the party, asked the government to pull out. The party split. Nepali Congress was also responsible for imposing ban on communist parties. B.P. then wanted his "most popular and largest" party to be invited to lead the next government.

Most other political parties, whose leaders were all involved in the 1950-51 democratic movement, either supported the Matrika Koirala cabinet or wanted themselves to lead a new government but they did not want the NC to dominate the next cabinet, in a wrangling only prolonged transition period and delayed general elections.

Even when they functioned underground, the Leftist groups stood vehemently against the NC out of fear of its popularity and conclusion that the archrival was "pro-India" and hence its "nationalist" credentials stood questionable. It was no surprise then that the prevailing political climate resulted in frequent changes in government.

The political parties that had joined forces in bringing an end to the Rana family rule and heralding democracy were engaged in downgrading one another. The prime cause for this was a desire on the part of all political leaders to be in power so that they could boost their prospects in the general elections.

To shield themselves, a few parties blamed the royal palace for playing them against one another as if they were novices and incompetent to fall in the palace-engineered trap again and again. The communists like to forget that they went at great lengths to check the growth of the NC. Similarly, the NC boasted that it was "the only" democratic party in the country and that "foreign governments also had great respect and faith in them.

The then American ambassador to India, Galbraith, who was concurrently accredited to Nepal, wrote a book some years after the 1959 general elections in Nepal, specifically claiming that his government had provided election funds to the NC. The NC has never refuted what the American diplomat wrote. However, its leaders used to claim that Soviet and Chinese governments provided funds to Nepali communists. They traded such charges during the 1959 elections and after.

The country's first general elections, conducted by an NC-led cabinet, were held in several phases. The results were announced even before all the staggered-schedule was completed, with the "only democratic party" winning more than two-thirds majority in a an election that saw about 40 per cent of eligible voters turn out. The NC's popular votes accounted for only 40 per cent of the total. The communists and other parties, as a result, were vehemently against the NC.

Law and order was a big problem. The NC cabinet claimed that "undemocratic forces" were against the country's first elected government. Prime Minister Koirala, who also led the NC in a departure of the stand he took against Matrika Koirala, repeatedly stressed that it was the NC that had led the 1950-51 Revolution, it was the NC that had won the 1959 general elections and it was duty of the NC government to meet the people's aspirations. He used to also praise the role played by "the Father of the Nation", the late King Tribhuvan for quickening the pace of the democratic movement.

However, the NC in the recent years has chosen to forget the contributions made by King Tribhuvan. For decades, it acknowledged his role and contributions but now refuses to even mention his name when Democracy Day is observed ever year in February. But then ingratitude and perfidy have been the characteristics of many political parties. Fifty years ago, many NC's rivals that had welcomed the first elected parliament's dissolution by King Mahendra. Many houses in Kathmandu valley were especially lighted with oil-fed lamps. The late NC leader Ganesh Man Singh used to bitterly recall the incident. However, it is also true that the parliament's dissolution in December 1960 was welcomed by the majority of the NC MPs, which is something even many scholars of political history and the so-called analysts prefer to forget.
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