VISITING INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTER HOLDS DIALOGUE WITH ARMY CHIEF

DEAILS OF STATE MINISTER LAMA’S RESIGNATION
UPDATE

Kathmandu, 21 April; State Minister of Finance Lharkyal Lama confirmed his resignation to reporters at a news conference in his ministry Thursday.
Lama said he resigned to create an investigation for charges leveled against hi,.
He gave a communal and ethnic twist charging his critics were against janatis and Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal.
With the resignation, it will be difficult for Lama to retain membership of parliament/ constituent assembly on behalf of UML.
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VISITING INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTER HOLDS DISCUSIONS WITH ARMY CHIEF UPDATE

Kathmandu, 21 April: Visiting Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna Thursday held discussions with Army Chief Gen. Chatraman Singh Gurung and reviewed possible integration of 19,000 plus former Maoist combatants in the state army.
NC President Sushil Koirala and former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and top UML leader and critic of Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal also held separate discussions with Krishna.
All three personalities called on the visiting minister at a hotel to hold dialogues.
By meeting Nepal, India has given official recognition to the former government chief’s criticism of Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal.
Following the meeting with Krishna, Koirala name no mention of ‘loktartra’ repeatedly mentioned ‘prajatantra’ to reporters.
Rrajatantra or democracy in English is a bad word after 2005 and leaders have assiduously avoided its mention.
Party leaders refrained from mentioning the word because people will ask who abused the misused it in the last six decades instead on institutionalizing democracy.
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NC PRESIDENT KOIRALA, SHER BAHADUR DEUBA MEET

Kathmandu, 21 April: NC President Sushil Koirala and three-time Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba held discussions Thursday ahead of Friday’s central committee meeting to confirm Koirala’s nomination of Ram Chandra Paudel and Krishna Prasad Shitaula as vice-president and nominated general secretary respectively.
Koirala has failed to push through his nominations in the last four months because of stiff opposition from Deuba whose supporters are almost equally represented in the committee.
Only elected central committee members have been asked to be present at Friday’s committee meeting to confirm Paudel and Shitaula.
Deuba lobbied with supporters Thursday to again block confirmation of Paudel and Shitaula.
Koirala was elected party chief seven months ago by a general convention but the initiation of internal democratic initiatives in the second largest party has tied his hands.
Koirala has demanded a free hand in running the party.
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AN APT METAPHOR

Kathmandu, 21 April: Usha Bista has become an apt metaphor for the tentativeness of our trudge toward a new Nepal. A member of the Loktantrik [Democratic] Everest Expedition 2007, Bista was part of a much-hyped endeavor to show the rest of the world how Nepal was advancing toward a post-monarchy pinnacle, Maila Baje writes in Nepali Netbook.
Teammates, firm on setting records of all sorts, ended up abandoning the 22 year old at an altitude of around 8,400 meters. That was after she fell nearly unconscious from swelling in the brain resulting from a scarcity of oxygen.
Earlier this year, expedition members had met with the top leaders of all the eight parties, whose flags they ventured to plant on the summit. As the marginalization of the monarchy proceeded as the one-point national agenda, Bista was at the center of another spin.
She was the first woman from the far-west region, from the Terai as well as from the Chhetri community, to mount an attempt on the world’s tallest mountain. The implication, of course, was that all but one of the Nepali women atop Everest belonged to the Sherpa community.
Discovered beside a path at the so-called “Death Zone” by a member of the Canadian Air Force, Bista was helped down the mountain to the South Col camp. There, British doctors, who had established a laboratory to explore oxygen deficiency in the blood, gave her emergency treatment. They escorted Bista down to a point where she could be picked up by helicopter.
In a nation where platitudes are being peddled as well thought-out plans and policies, Bista’s plight encapsulates the perils of our path. Of course, callousness is not new on our mountains. Two high-profile desertions last year triggered worldwide condemnation, prompting Sir Edmund Hillary to attack the degeneration of a once-lofty adventure into trophy hunting by the wealthy.
This mission was different. Members had an opportunity to prove that loktantra – loosely articulated as democracy without the monarchy – was really anything beyond a slogan epitomizing the Seven Party Alliance’s and the Maoists mutual antipathy for the monarchy.
The fact that climbers continued to tout their own achievements by abandoning a fellow team member in utter distress was bad enough. The reality that the Nepali media was complicit in a cover-up as long as they could is emblematic of loktantra’s manifestation as an exclusive tool for the perpetuation of the SPA-Maoist combine’s monopoly on power.
Surely, those unwilling or unable to go along with the current ground rules are doomed. Anything perceived to stand in the way of a nebulous newness is demonized as feudal, exploitative and antiquated. But when catalysts of change like Bista are abandoned at the first sign of incapacitation, what hope can there be for those outside the establishment perimeter?
There is a more poignant metaphor, though. Nepal is indeed lucky to have foreign friends and well-wishers ready to clean up the debris from our free fall. Surely their patience for platitudes cannot outlast ours.
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All ABOUT OUT SEVEN-POINT ACCORD

Kathmandu, 21 April: Signed between UML President Jhala Nath Khanal and Maoist supreme leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, the seven-point accord has created a rift that has diminished UML reputation, demonized Prachanda as one bent on preventing his deputy Babu Ram Bhattarai from sharing public spotlight and reduced Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala to a weak leader with neither charisma and dynamism nor any decisive power, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review.

Now it can be told, thanks to well-placed sources. The seven-point agreement never really got off well, as it was embroiled in controversy within the factions of the signatories. When Prachanda found that he had no chance of securing majority support in the House of Representatives, he approached the UML chief, who was desperate to make history as a prime minister of Nepal under any conditions.

Eager to join a future cabinet during the autumn of his political career, Bharat Mohan Adhikary stepped forward to be rewarded with the task of drafting an agreement with the Maoist leader. Khanal cared less for the accord content than on become the new prime minister "in the history of Loktantrik Nepal."

At his own residence, Adhikary dictated and Bishnu Poudel, who hoped for the Home portfolio but ultimately landed with Defence Ministry, typed a draft. Then Maoist leader Dev Gurung arrived. Seeing the UML duo busy in the draft, Gurung felt left out and phoned an assistant to join him at Adhikary's place. And Gurung too got busy in the draft. Then alighted Ghanashyam Bhushal, himself an aspirant for a cabinet berth. He had his own suggestions to offer. In short, all except Gurung's assistant were gripped by a mood of excitement and anticipation.

Once the first draft was ready, Adhikary phone-contacted Khanal who sounded rather indifferent to what the accord contained as long as it fetched him the parliamentary majority to become the new prime minister. Khanal told the Deputy Prime Minister Finance Minister hopeful that he would sign "whatever draft you prepare".

Once the draft was completed by Khanal's assignees and submitted to Prachanda, the latter consulted with his close circle but not with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai's faction. After some discussion a larger group of Maoists met. Although Prachanda had assured Khanal that he would get his party's support without difficult, "just rest assured", the UML chief was nervous and went to the Maoist meeting premises twice.

On both occasions, Prachanda reiterated that his party support for Khanal was a certainty; "only a few other points are being discussed; there is nothing to worry at all." It was only at the eleventh hour that Bhattarai and his group got informed that Maoists would be supporting Khanal for the top job. Bhattarai instantly expressed deep resentment and registered a formal dissent note. But when the Prachanda-Mohan Vaidya factions did not budge, he saw no alternative but to go with the pack.

In the UML, too, General Secretary Ishwar Pokharel, outgoing Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Khanal's archrival Khadga Prasad Oli did not know about the latest development. It was at the eleventh hour that they were informed of the accord.

Taken aback by the Maoist strategy to support their party president, Madhav Nepal and Oli advised delay in voting for "detailed discussion" among party members but Khanal resisted saying that "we should not delay any further; the voting has to take place today before we lose this golden opportunity". Nepal and Oli had to give a grudging approval, lest they be seen as dead against Khanal's chances of becoming the new prime minister.

Khanal's problem had only begun. He did make "history" as one more premier of Nepal's long list of prime ministers. He just could not come around creating a "complete" cabinet. The Nepal-Oli faction pinned him down with issues pertaining to the Home and other portfolios. Prachanda insisted on procuring the Home Ministry for his nominee while the UML majority was against it arguing that the Maoists had yet to integrate their troops into the peace process.

The main opposition, Nepali Congress, also warned that the Home portfolio should not be given to the party that continued to seize thousands of bighas of land, including those of many senior NC members, and deployed YCL with militant orientation.

All that Khanal wanted was success in constituting a "full cabinet" to avoid an embarrassment of taking more than two months in doing so. He suffered a heavy limp right from the start. He pleaded with Prachanda to end the embarrassment in the public and humiliation by his rivals within UML.

Prachanda had his own problem, having assured too many people ministerial jobs. He also found that Vaidya and others in his party were getting bolder and persistent weith their stand, indicating that they would not endorse on the dotted line whatever their party president presented. They all had to contend with 110 names for 11 ministerial berths.

In the Maoist camp, Bhattarai began to put the pieces together as to how the engineering was done against his joining the cabinet. At one time, the Nepal-Oli faction had managed to offer, on behalf of UML, that Bhattarai could become the first deputy premier holding the Finance portfolio. Prachanda's loyalists suggested that ethical questions could arise if Bhattarai joined the government under Khanal. Bhattarai was reminded that he had written against Khanal being supported as prime minister.

Insiders say that Bhattarai otherwise would have joined the Khanal cabinet. But the situation proved a godsend to Prachanda who since months was bent on closely clipping the wings of Bhattarai, seen as a threat to Prachanda's leadership. If Bhattarai joined the cabinet, Ishwar Pokharel thought he would be able to get Home and Bishnu Poudel Defence.

Prachanda since last year had wanted Bhattarai out of power. Bhattarai, according to Maoist fence sitters, wants to emerge as a martyr, that is, he wants the Prachanda faction to take action against him. A well-connected Maoist said, "Prachanda wants Baburam Bhattarai to quit the party and Baburam wants to be seen leaving party under compulsion by his detractors within the organization."

Vice-President Parmanand Jha recently said at a public function that he did not believe 90 percent of what the media carried. Jha might be speaking truth. But under the prevailing situation, Nepalis do not believe 99 percent of politicians promise.
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