DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER YADAV DEMANDS ACTION AGAINST MINISTERS IN DARFUR SCAM

DEPUTY PRIME UPENDRA YADAV DEMANDS ACTION AGAINST POLITICIANS

Kathmandu, 9 June: Deputy Prime Minister Upendra Yadav, who is also chairman of MJFN, Thursday demanded CIAA also charge former ministers for what he called their direct involvement in the multi-million Sudan scam He charged politicians in Biratnagar while talking to reporters were protected while charges have been levelled against officials only; 34 policemen, including three former IGPs have been accused in the Rs. 280 million scam to purchase faulty armed personnel carriers (APCs) and logistics for Nepali police peacekeepers with the UN in Darfur, Sudan.
Yadav charged corruption was being encouraged by selective targeting officials only and argued purchases couldn’t have gone ahead without ministerial sanction.
CIAA said no evidence has been found of involvement of ministers or home ministry officials.
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OPINION

HOW ABOUT MOHAN BAIDYA AS PM?

Kathmandu, 9 June: Kamal Dahal doesn’t want to become prime minister again, a loyalist said the other day. Everyone that matters – India, China, US, UK, and EU – wants his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, in the top job, according to one of his key supporters, Maila Baje writes in Nepali Netbook.
In the Nepali Congress, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudel both want the premiership so bad they are working hard to keep each other out. And it gets better. Jay Prakash Prasad Gupta of the breakaway Madhesi Janadhikar Forum has staked his claim. If for no other reason than the fact that his is only party that has a republican suffix to it. And, meanwhile, even the fiercest critics of Prime Minister Jhal Nath Khanal in his CPN-UML don’t want him to step down right away.
But let not your hearts be troubled. On the constitution-drafting front – the real job before the nation, in case you missed it – things are moving, if spasmodically. So much so that the otherwise downbeat Nilambar Acharya, who heads the drafting panel, believes it may be possible to have a rudimentary text ready within schedule. (Maila Baje feels Acharya bears watching. He always tends to be the first to sound the bells of doom, for understandable reasons.)
In another spur to the process, if not exactly to peace, Dahal has decided to remove his PLA guards. The decision is based on the recent decision of the Army Integration Special Committee, which decided to send all combatants deployed for security of Maoist leaders to their respective cantonments within a week.
Realizing the importance of their presence at home, four members of the special committee – Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat, Barshaman Pun, Ishwor Pokharel and Jay Prakash Prasad Gupta – cancelled a long scheduled trip to the US. Their ardor was not shared by Madhav Kumar Nepal, Sujata Koirala and Hisila Yami, who left on a trip to Bangladesh. They probably thought they could cover the distance in time, should things come to that. In any case, the attacks on the Facebook fraternity as good-for-nothing do-gooders has somewhat abated.
The latest word is that the Maoists, if they cannot get Bhattarai, would put up Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ for the premiership. Considering all that has happened since Dahal stepped down, the peace process would probably need a Maoist premier to get anywhere approximating a step ahead. For good or ill, Bhattarai’s intellectual firepower and Badal’s military genius has brought Nepal where it is today. So both are worthy contenders.
But since the past is no longer the preponderant issue, how about Mohan Baidya as prime minister? The hardliner seems to be everyone’s problem today. There is a great chance he will refuse and insist on his candidate, Badal. (Baidya even quit his constituent assembly seat after taking all the trouble to get elected.) If Baidya refuses, he will have committed himself a little more staunchly to the old-style Maoist communism he keeps threatening us with. But what if he agrees? Wouldn’t that be progress?
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BAD TIMES,WORSE TIMES

Kathmandu, 9 June: If Nepalis have fallen on bad times, their anger and frustrations cannot be out of sight. These are good times for a small group of the political class whose lifestyles have transformed beyond recognition from their earlier days. But these are also bad times for their credibility that has nose-dived rock bottom, Trikaal Vastavik writes in People’s Review.
The recent Supreme Court verdict indicated that the previous extension of the Constituent Assembly for a year was unconstitutional. A few lawyers like Dr. Bhiamrjun Acharya were right in their assertion that such extension was not the intent and purpose of the Interim Constitution. Yet no one takes responsibility for the horrendous misconduct that actually happened.

Back in 1952, B.P. Koirala’s Nepali Congress took a stand against an all-party government describing it as “extremely misleading”. It said such a cabinet “does it succeed anywhere and it only increases bitterness among rival parties…We do not want to be carried away by attractive but poison-laden slogans like all-party government, coalition, popular front". Koirala not long after thundered, "If Nepali Congress breaks and weakens, don't think that some other party will be able to govern."

Sixty years later, Nepal and Nepalis face a similar situation of political leaders setting aside the actual agenda of the people to serve their own power interests. That is the crux of the problem today. At a time when a cross-country agreement is needed on fundamental national issues, the major parties are seen to squabble day in and day out.

They used to blame monarchy for not allowing any prime minister to complete his term in office. Enter the multiparty polity in 1990 and yet no one managed to complete a full term. Girija Prasad Koirala became premier half a dozen times but had to leave office prematurely due to his own foolishness or unprincipled characteristics. Come “loktantra” in 2006, and we have had Koirala, Prachanda, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal as premiers. A fifth one is within sight of taking over, relegating Khanal as yet another “has-been” prime minister.

While wailing about the poverty-stricken people across the country, politicians have managed to dramatically improve their own state of economy as can be gleaned from their new lifestyle and creature comfort. This rings the youth in utter frustration amid mounting grievances and family obligations. The youth can only have curses for those who mislead them to the tunnel of lost dream and defeat of the declared promises. They become sour and solitary, seething with anger while many others also suffer a similar station in society.

Donor countries and their intelligence fronts might consider Nepal's situation as favorable for two things: a) road to inflicting pain to China's soft underbelly—Tibet; b) and a bulwark for Christian proselytizing through NGO funding and charity. But their smug attitude of interfering might prove costly, if alternative prospects and permutations were to be completely ignored. Incalculable consequences could be triggered.

Groups in India are accusing Pakistan of harboring Osama bin-Laden, killed by the American SEAL unit raid on May 2. Whatever the truth, the fact is that, New Delhi had not been able to sight let alone arrest Nepali Maoists, including Prachanda, when they were living at Noida, near New Delhi. This happened when not only Nepal, most of the time under NC rule, but also the Indian government had declared the Maoists terrorists. Prachanda himself admitted that he had lived at Noida for eight and a half years during the insurgency days.

The West does not have any economic interest or other politically strategic interest, except prospects of creating trouble for communist China. Were China to become a fully capitalist and politically pluralistic state in declared ideology and functioning, its interest in Nepal would be over overnight. Apart from Tibet, its only interest is on the prospects of aggressively liberating the souls of non-Christians through inducements and smear campaign against other religions.

Well-organized but ill-intentioned rallies aimed at raising the prospects of proselytizing testify to the afore-mentioned points. The agenda of religion in the political garb of "secularism" is floated because it does not threaten the sponsors’ own religion.

The last five years have been a squandered opportunity in a country in chaos and people in pain. Impunity refuses to bow out. Rather than peaceful and prosperous Nepal, this period has been painfully disturbing and instable. Neither dignity nor authority can make a government strong. Only notoriety of failure will not do. Doing anything to remain in office also won't work.

It is the arrogance and miscalculations of political leaders that led to our current state. Five years ago, crowds exploded with excitement and anticipation that they would be a “new” Nepal that the leaders promised. Euphoria was at its zenith except for a fastidious few. Power, to political parties, has fuelled the furnace of greed, nepotism and manipulation—far away from the probity, austerity and popular authority they promised during elections.

Maoists pledge revolutionary changes; NC talks of socialism and UML recites full-fledged democracy. Both have come a long way since the 1950s. In practice, all are the same. The World Bank and IMF are revered and followed in toto. Their lifestyles are an affront to the poverty-beaten voters. Excesses and extravaganzas mock at the latter.

Prachanda, Baburam Bhattarai and Mohan Vaidya Kiran in the Maoist party, Sushil Koirala-Sher Bahadur Deuba factions in NC and the K.P. Oli-Madhav Kumar Nepal's foot in the door of UML chief Jhala Nath Khanal indicate many incongruities. Most other parties of any note fare similarly.

Khanal, as prime minister, failed to live up to his inflated reputation but he was not alone. His two predecessors Madhav Kumar Nepal and Pushpa Kamal Dahal were no better. Girija Prasad Koirala served six times and was no different, blundering as he did again and again. Koirala, Nepal, Dahal and Khanal were responsible for transforming this once peaceful country into a land of chaos and impunity, thanks to over 100 underground armed groups, impunity, breakdown in law and order and rampant corruption. Plots and intrigues mark inner-party scheming and backstabbing.
Political parties are a part and parcel of political pluralism. But they must function like democratic organizations and per their declared public pledges. Lacking to match their performance with what they promise is what has ailed Nepal so deeply.
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