ELECTION PLOY OF PM TO CAPTURE STATE POWER Kathmandu, 20 July: Declaration of constituent assembly (CA) election 22 November is just a ploy of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattaarai to capture state power, Spokesman of main opposition NC Arjun Narsingh KC said. It is just a drama of Baburam to capture state power,” he said. He ruled out extending the tenure of the CA as demanded by some former NC lawmakers. ‘The CA can’t be extended. It’s not the party agenda,” KC added. NC opposes the 22 November election called by the premier With only two more days remaining, government hasn’t sent to the election commission amendments to the interim constitution and election bye-laws required to conduct the vote. The declared election is unlikely tobe held by the deadline. nnnn . . UML RUN BY BRAHIMINS, CHETRIS SAYS JANAJATI LEADER BIJAYA SUBBA Kathmandu, 20 July: After 10 Janajati leaders were removed of their responsibilities in the party Thursday in UML, they charged the main opposition is run by Brahmins and Chetris. The party said the leaders can be reinstated. “New agenda has started ‘We will discuss how to move ahead,” Bijaya Subba said without ruling our posibioityof a split.. Responsibility of Vice-chairman AshokRai has been given to Shanker Pokhrel. Nnnn OPINION AVOIDING ROAD TO DISASTER Kathmandu, 20 July: A month after the split in the Maoist party, INGOs based in Kathmandu Valley are the most worried about the chances of the “gains” of the 2006 political changes being not consolidated. For they have their own agendas that are no longer secret, Trikal Vastavik writes People’s Review. On the other hand, the Nepalese people are worried that the deep division distrust among the “big” parties might aggravate the already deteriorating law and order situation. First it was a nagging fear. Now it is certain of the definitive direction that defeats the foreign forces and their fronts working in Nepal. For a change, sections of the UCPNM, Nepali Congress CPN (UML) have begun alluding that “foreign interference” was responsible for the dissolution of the constituent assembly. Every time they faced a difficulty, these quarters had been raising the same concern in the past too. The phrase “foreign interference” has, however, always been taboo for the Madhesh-based parties. Indeed, foreign interference had always lurked in Nepal. In the loktantrik years, it has been nakedly hyperactive. Some European countries gunning for religious proselytizing and New Delhi failing to notice the identity of the Nepalese Maoist leaders residing comfortably in the nearby NOIDA area (in fact, facilitating talks between the group that Delhi publicly dubbed “terrorist” and Nepal’s mainstream party leaders like Girija Prasad Koirala and Madhav Kumar Nepal), firmly established the foreign link turned into outright interference. When these political parties gained power, the consequences were inevitable. UNMIN entered like the proverbial camel seeking a few inches of ten-space for its nose that was troubled by the torrential rains outside. Its representative, run and operated by the key funding agencies behind the not so opaque screens, pretended not to notice that the total number of the former armed Maoists in the cantonments did not tally with the actual number of inmates by no less than 3,000. With such UNMIN monitoring, one can imagine the actual process of identifying qualified troops and otherwise. But, as its performance subsequently showed, trust and be damned. The OHCHR (Office of High Commission for Human Rights) is no more, although its sponsors wanted unlimited extension. It tried to act as a superior body to even the Natrional Human Rights Commission, which is filled with nominees of political parties headed by a retired justice). This did not go down well with the NHRC chaps. The OHCHR had hoped that the way it obliged and favored political and civil society “leaders”by recruiting to well-paid jobs at its office would generate goodwill from places what mattered. Ministers are personally known to have telephoned INGOs bosses for jobs to their favorite ones. But the foreign body was ultimately packed off with no one shed any tears except, perhaps, those who had personally found employment from its presence. Some so-called senior journalists at major media organizatrions are known to have cashed in on their Fourth Estate status to extract their pound of PR flesh from INGOs. INGO bosses and UN unit heads are also learnt to have personally phoned political party leaders inquiring if they had anyone to recommend to employment slots. A former prime minister of the leftist orientation spoke to a Scandinavian country for an INSECT project running into 100-million. That is why the INSECT fails to be proactive on issues of some sections of the Nepalese population being deprived of their basic rights. Technically prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai went to Rio, even if he was asked by most political parties not to do so. His party boss Pushpa Kamal Dahal, too, wanted him to skip the trip. Bhattarai and his wife Hisila, along with a jumbo-size team from this impoverished country, attended the Rio meet on climate change, spending millions of rupees in the process. It was an act most unbecoming. The Nepalese media, including the official media, naturally downgraded Bhattarai’s address to the Rio meet. But then Baburam speaks not for his conscience but for his sources of foreign inspiration. He, it is learnt, was briefed by his patron and Christian lobby but kept the meetings quiet. His main purpose was to be briefed and obtain reassurances of their support and blessings. For his lord-lobby finds Prachanda too unpredictable to its liking. So Bhattarai has at least some foreign groups, which consider him to be reliable, contrary to the perception that large sections of Nepalese harbor about him. Donor agencies like The Asia Foundation and the National Democratic Initiative, in addition to agencies operated by the Norwegians, the Danes and the Finns, or those in the business of evangelism need to be issued notices to send them, home. In any case, the consensus worldwide is that 90 per cent of such funds land in the pockets of thugs disguised in various masks. Such INGOs should be packed off to where they come from. Madhav Nepal and Sushil Koirala these days mention “foreign” forces interfering in Nepal’s affairs, though they are yet to summon enough courage to name names. Some of their own party members make their living through NGO operations liberally funded by suspect foreign agencies. A groundswell of people’s protest is welling up. The names of the present day leaders, including civil society brokers, will be burdened with the sins of their successors. The large parties have rendered disorder, corruption and impunity at every layer—making this the worst period in 60 years. Popular hopes are dashed and incompetent political leaders are seen to be very amiable to serving vested interests. There is the certainty of uncertainty prevailing in Nepal for quite some years: continued conflict, chaos and corruption. We remain Nepalese and should fight those who indulge in the game of allowing foreign interference. With the situation deteriorating to highly concerting levels, a major systematic change in the political front is called for. Rastriya Prajatantra Party/Nepal’s Kamal Thapa, who in June organized a major rally in Kathmandu, is by all his words and actions seems bent on striving for the recall of the franchise of monarchy, whose absence is marked by the deep division and growing disharmony in our society. Monarchy is a precedent established and legitimized by popular acceptance and removed by a biased section using muscle power pumped by foreign forces. If those in power genuinely feel that the Nepalese people do not want monarchy any more, they should agree to hold a national referendum. This requires the courage to face reality and accept popular verdict whichever goes the ultimate verdict. Nnnn