ANOTHER MAJOR AIR DISASTER AVERTED Kathmandu, 5 Oct. : All 18 passengers and crew members were safe Friday morning when the rear of a state-owned Nepal Airlines Twin Otter got bogged down in a ditch at Jomsom airport as it took off for Pokhara. The aircraft has been pulled out by army and police personnel. The Canadian-built turboprop skidded off the run during takeoff procedures. The incident comes exactly one week after 18 passengers were killed when a German-built Dronier bit a bird and crashed at Kathmandu airport shortly after takeoff. There were no casualties in two other bird hits after the Kathmandu airport accident. nnnn. OPINION Someone to do our dirty work? Kathmandu, 5 Oct.: In calling for a ‘liberal dictatorship’ that could save Nepal from impending catastrophe, historian Satya Mohan Joshi ostensibly spoke for countless compatriots. Such sentiments have become commonplace during casual conversations and in online chatter but do not yet command commensurate coverage in the media. It will take more of the likes of the nonagenarian academic to keep that quest in the headlines, Maila Baje writes in Nepali Netbook. When an exasperated interviewer questioned whether his prescription did not represent a contradiction in terms, Joshi cited King Mahendra’s record as an example. Implied in Joshi’s remark was the fact that democracy was an annoying distraction to substantive action. This is not as outrageous a concept in this day and age as it might sound. Even in the world’s most advanced democracy, some people have started to look enviously at the ease with which leaders in China can get things done. (How many times, after all, has Thomas L. Friedman, the respected foreign affairs columnist of the equally venerable New York Times wistfully wondered how much more President Barack Hussein Obama could have achieved had he had the ‘flexibility’ of a President Hu Jintao?) Just because Joshi cited King Mahendra and because his son, the last Nepali monarch, has been drawing record crowds during his regional tours does not necessarily mean the monarchy should be the focus of our attention here. (In any case, Maila Baje finds it hard to imagine a scenario where a restored monarchy would manifest itself in an authoritarian incarnation.) Since Nepalis have already experienced an oligarchy and a non-party regime, this new dictatorship would probably have to come from someone who has total organizational control, who has leadership of a coercive force such as the military or who has a powerful and dynamic personality that could simply attract others. Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepal’s closest example of democratic authoritarianism, could not go too far. Military rule could be a novel experiment in Nepal, given that the armed forces have never directly run the country. Or someone could just emerge in some form or the other and begin proving his or her abilities by getting the job – at least a lot of it – done. But we must consider the other side of the coin first. What do people demanding a liberal dictatorship actually envisage? Of course, benevolent dictatorship is a form of government in which an authoritarian leader exercises political power for the benefit of the whole population rather than exclusively for his or her own self-interest or benefit or for the benefit of only a small portion of the population. But will Nepalis have the patience to put up with such a dictator once the welcome wears off? A people who could rise up against a monarch who was barely halfway through the three-years he asked for to set thing right remain sullen as the successor political class failed to complete their job in twice the time they were allotted. What has really stopped us from organizing a massive uprising for the promulgation of the constitution? Some congenital collective perpetual oppositional proclivity? If we are looking for someone who will do our dirty work for us on ill-defined terms and a perilous tenure, we might better recognize right away the elusiveness of that liberal dictator. Nnnn Time for confession and action Kathmandu, 5 Oct.: For pointing out that former King Gyanendra was unjustly demonized by overseas fundamentalists who pull strings behind the cash curtains behind their front organizations in Nepal will earn anyone a pat in the back from the forces that forced upon Nepalis agendas that have miserably failed, Trikal Vastavk writes in People’s Review. . But who wants endorsement from such quarters that waylaid the people mindlessly? During the 2005-6 movement, hate campaigns were let loose against Nepal’s monarchy spearheaded by parties which monopolize power even when they completely failed to deliver a new Constitution not just within the stipulated time frame of two years but the extended time totaling four years. The allegations were that billions of dollars were stashed away in foreign vaults. Interestingly, those making such accusations refrained from mentioning Swiss banks. They restrained their workers also from naming Switzerland which is a haven for substantial amount of bribe money from especially poverty-stricken countries. What did the trick for the Swiss was the munificence bestowed on the groups patronized for religious and other agendas. The alleged money in foreign accounts are, however, yet to be traced and will have the chances of being traced as strongly as does the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was supposed to have possessed. At the lead were the Nordic countries, whose lies are now known to all. The damage has been done. Unfortunately, for the foreign quarters, the consequences for their credibility will have long-term implications. Their misdeeds in Nepal have been noted by other developing countries. Sri Lanka is a beneficiary of the exposure. Colombo, having closely watched and monitored the developments in Nepal, found the events a valuable lesson as to who the West wanted to win the non-Christian East. For years the Norwegians were allowed to play a mediatory role. When the mediator started to become partisan with ulterior motives, Colombo put its foot down. As the state operations against the Tamil Tigers were at a decisive stage, Christian lobbies made frantic calls on Colombo to go for “dialogue and negotiations.” One unwanted minister from a Nordic country was about to crash land in Colombo when the prospective host sent a stern warning that he would not be given a visa and, would be deported the moment he landed in Sri Lanka. The rebuff stung the Christian lobbies so strongly that they began raising the issue of human rights “violations” during the final stage of the war. Much of the world saw the game and dismissed it as reactions from self-styled mediators who felt slighted. Their attempts at vengeance echo in the periodic charges they make about “human rights violation” during the final days of the war that eventually ended after three decades of death and destruction that claimed more than 100,000 lives. Such blatant designs against another independent country and gross misinterpretation of human rights violations are not going to be as effective as in the past. Groups and “world community” will have to find new methods to serve their motives badly disguised in liberal-sounding slogans. This is for the rest of the world in general at a time when many countries have begun to understand the modus operandi of the front organizations of foreign funding agencies, mostly routed at the behest of national governments and involvement of intelligence agencies. In Nepal, four-group forces, with former gun-toting Maoists who were for years dubbed by Nepali Congress and UML as “terrorists” have unleashed an engine of terror for six and a half years of what they describe as “loktantra”, which sounds like the “people’s democracy” that many communist countries in eastern Europe in the past and North Korea emphasized upon. Consequently, suppression and incompetency have been routine at all levels of state structure and institutions. Meritocracy has disappeared in the name of “positive discrimination” which goes for setting aside specific quota for various marginalized groups, including some that have better living standards and income than the so-called “privileged” classes. NGOs, many of them run by “civil society” members doubling as political party activists, are supported by foreign agencies whose own parent countries do not practice what they preach and promote through dubious means in this poverty-stricken, disorganized and dominated by NGO-ist agendas. The issue of republic, federalism and secular state is something forcibly not allowed for wide debate. Pleas that such an issue be put before an acid test of national plebiscite and enable all to accept the verdict accordingly ignored. Failure to debate is the crux of the problem and not a solution at all. Its implications will have long-term effects. The four political forces do not ever dare to discuss, let alone order investigation, into corruption cases. Impunity and threats are the order of the day whereby individuals convicted with grave crimes have been given public positions. Convictions by court verdicts have gone unimplemented. People had expected the old leaders of “New Nepal” to introduce positive changes that would justify the volcanic political changes in April 2006. Much to their regret, such changes have not come about; in fact, the previous six decades were all better than the experiences for nearly seven years now. With poverty and economic disparity growing, whatever the World Bank miscalculations, the trouble is bound to burst open. The new is to do with they have finally confessed. The question is whether this marks a change of heart or only a remark that confirms the goings-on but does not denote any pledge to reform and repair. Transparency International Nepal Chapter’s President Bishnu Bahadur KC was recently quoted as saying, “All current political parties in Nepal are corrupt.” The anti-corruption activist is inaccurate. Only those who have been in coalition combinations in “loktantrik” years fit in the categorization. It might, therefore, be in the fitness of things for pro-constitutional monarchists to thank the undemocratic elements who tried to put obstacles to the recent visit to some districts of Western Nepal by former King Gyanendra. The reactions pouring in from different parts of the country to the attempts at disrupting the visit came strongly in favor of the former king. Some of the support was on ground of purely democratic right of a citizen and most were also for reiterating the fact that Nepalis in general continue to have faith in constitutional monarchy and others have begun repenting the manner in which the country was “declared” a republic. (The writer can be reached at: trikalvastavik@yahoo.com) nnnn