 |
| |
VOL. 03, NO. 11, Oct. 30 2009 (Kartik 13, 2066)
|
|
CPA
Peace Row
The government is in a fix after one of its senior ministers raises a demand for reviewing the peace pact
By SANJAYA DHAKAL
 |
| Defense Minister Bidya Devi Bhandari :Different Stand |
Defense Minister Bidya Devi Bhandari is quite a soft-spoken lady. But, of late, she has been breathing fire against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) – which, she says is in the need of immediate amendment.
Branding the pact as old and outdated, she has called for broad political understanding to change it.
Her primary concern rests with the problems the Nepali Army (NA) is said to be facing due to some of the provisions of the peace pact.
According to her, the NA is running out of weapons and ammunitions and is facing difficulties in its regular training and recruitment.
“The national army cannot remain paralyzed,” she said.
Her remarks has embarrassed Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal , angered the Maoists, disturbed the international actors and sent a chill down the spine of ordinary people.
But Minister Bhandari remains adamant that it is high time to review the CPA.
“The CPA was signed three years ago in a different context. It was promised that the peace process would reach the logical end in six months. That did not happen. Therefore, we cannot remain stuck and allow the national army to become paralyzed,” she said.
She has said that the major bones of contention within the CPA are the provisions related to the restriction of the NA.
 |
| PM Nepal at NA Training Centre: Commitment to Cmp |
“The national army cannot be kept in the same level as Maoist combatants and stopped from engaging in its regular training and recruitment,” she said.
The second sour point, she said, was the move to put the CPA as a part of the interim constitution.
“The weakening of the national army will pose danger to sovereignty, integrity and democracy of the nation,” she said.
Her remarks have drawn severe criticism from the Maoists.
“That is totally against peace process. We severely condemn her statements,” senior Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai said.
UNMIN Concerned
It is not only the Maoists who have been rattled by Defense Minister’s remarks.
The international community, particularly the UN, seems to be disturbed with these unexpected turn of events.
In fact, soon after Minister Bhandari made the statements, UNMIN chief Karin Landgren sought a clarification of sorts from the Prime Minister who assured her that the government wasn’t thinking anything about changing the peace pact.
As the UN Security Council is not in the mood to extend the deadline of UNMIN beyond January 23, 2009, the international community is keen to see the peace process – importantly the issue of army integration – wrapped up before that.
However, the ground situation does not provide anything for them to be excited about.
The peace process lies unattended as the issue of army integration drags on.
Even the seemingly easy part of rehabilitating the disqualified combatants has hit obstructions as the combatants are said to be demanding cash incentives before they depart from the cantonments.
The Army Integration Special Committee has been tardy in following through the process.
As the vital processes remain stalled, the major parties are locked in a bitter political rivalry. The five and a half month-long dispute over ‘civilian supremacy’ has taken a new turn after the Maoists have openly stated that only changing the leadership of the government will now satisfy them. The Maoists have already given a deadline till October end to the government - threatening of launching a major street stir then after.
POLITICAL INSTABILITY
Gift of Giants
As Nepal’s neighbors continue on a collision course, it may be a wishful thinking to expect lasting political stability in the country
By KESHAB POUDEL
 |
| Political Leaders: Making and breakina alliances |
“We will launch a political agitation to unseat the government led by CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal. Until a national government is constituted under our leadership, we will not allow the Legislature Parliament to function,” Maoist leader Mohan Baidhya Kiran, who recently came back from a tour of China, declared.
“If Maoists have the guts, they should pull down my government through a constitutional process. They cannot unseat me from their agitation in the streets,” Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal challenged.
The Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) has issued a fifteen-day ultimatum. Or else, it would “dislodge” the government. This indicates a new kind of political instability brewing in the country.
UCPN-M has come a long way since the party joined open politics after signing on an India-brokered 12-point agreement with seven other political parties in New Delhi in 2005.
Since then, Nepal has transformed: from a monarchy to a republic, from a unitary state to a federal nation and from exclusionary politics to inclusive ethos. What Nepal has yet to see happening is the establishment of a lasting peace and stability.
Until a few years ago, members of political parties and civil society institutions had the monarchy to blame as the main factor behind elusive stability. They asked the people to come to the streets to remove the monarchy.
The culprit is gone but instability remains. Even the Maoist government, which enjoyed the support of nearly two thirds of the Constituent Assembly members, collapsed in June following the resignation of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda over non-implementation of his decision to sack the then army chief.
In a big country, it is the internal factors that determine the external policy but for a smaller country it is the external factors that seem to determine its internal politics.
It is increasingly seen in Nepal that its internal political dynamics is not immune to the stands its neighbours, India and China, take. Their differences have mattered to all systems and governments: the absolute monarchy, the constitutional monarchy, the absolute democratic government led by Nepali Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala, who secured both the positions of the party president and the prime minister, and the rebel leader Prachanda-led government with fresh mandates from CA elections.
Renowned South Asian expert, also a Nepal expert, late Leo E Rose wrote in his book, Nepal: Profile of a Himalayan Kingdom, “it is a normal phenomenon for the foreign policy of any society to be strongly affected by domestic political and economic factors, and this is certainly the case in Nepal. But the reverse principle- namely, that international factors have a strong and often decisive impact on Kathmandu’s domestic policies- is even more apparent. This is a painful fact of life for many Nepali’s and one that some of them would prefer to ignore.”
 |
| Vaidya : A new threat |
What late Rose wrote in his book in 1980 is still valid. “But despite intensive efforts over several centuries to isolate the country from alien influences of all kinds and to emphasize indigenous response to new situations and challenges, the penetration of Nepal from outside is truly massive in scale and probably irreversible,” he wrote.
At a time when Nepal’s two neighbors are staging open confrontations, Nepal needs to go a long way to secure political stability. From the holding of CA elections to the declaration of republic, the federal and secular Nepal’s hopes to achieve a long lasting peace remain trapped in a prolonged political instability.
Even after the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabo, the differences between the giants have not narrowed. Just after his visit to Bangkok, Indian Prime Minister Singh said the Dalai Lama, whom China considers as a separatist leader, is an honored guest of India and is free to travel anywhere he wishes to.
The recent visit of Indian ambassador to Lomangthang, a bordering town with Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, where he inaugurated a school and the Chinese Ambassador’s visit to Kakarvitta, which borders with Indian state of West Bengal or just over Chicken neck, to inaugurate China Study Center, indicate their interests in Nepal.
The Maoist leader’s and prime minister Nepal’s remarks quoted above hint at further instability in the new republic’s political journey ahead. PM Nepal may be replaced by someone else, but this will only open up another round of political instability.
As late Rose, in his book Nepal Strategy for Survival, writes, “To Kathmandu, the current potentialities of external domination and subversions are not very different in kind though- they may be in degree- from those with which Nepali governments have had to contend for at least two centuries.”
Since what Rose wrote in his book in 1971, Nepal’s situation has not changed much. Of course, old political systems, political actors and institutions have gone, what Nepal continues to inherit is a prolonged course of instability which nobody can preempt. “For nearly two centuries, this small Himalayan Kingdom has been beset by a seemingly irresistible array of interested outside parties, eager to assist, and advise and manipulate,” wrote Rose.
In about six months in power, the government led by Nepal seems to be in trouble like all his predecessors, dashing the hope for political stability in the Loktantrik federal republic of Nepal.
Will Nepal have political stability anytime soon?
“It will be another wonder if politics in Nepal remains stable despite its location between two big neighbors which have unresolved conflicts between themselves,” said a political analyst, a renowned constitutional lawyer, who does not want to be identified.
