News, Views From Nepal

Yuba Nath Lamsal The deadline set for the promulgation of the new constitution, which is just a week away, is going to be missed again. The Constituent Assembly (CA) is unlikely to accomplish its task within the May 28 deadline. This indicates the height of irresponsibility of our parties and an example of betrayal of the people, who had elected their representatives to write a new constitution in time. It has been more than three years since the CA was formed through a popular election. Originally, as per the interim constitution, the term of the CA had been fixed for two years. The interim constitution requires a two-third majority in Parliament to amend any provision of the constitution. Given the composition of the parliament, a two-third majority cannot be acquired without the cooperation of the three main parties, namely, the UCPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML. In the saddle of power last year were the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and Madhesi parties, while the largest part...

Book Review (A Half Decade of Peace Process: (2005-2010): Its Challenges and Prospects Yuba Nath Lamsal Much has been written on Nepal’s ongoing peace process that started in late 2005 with the signing of the 12-point agreement between the insurgent CPN-Maoist (now UCPN-Maoist) and the seven party alliance (a loose network of parliamentary parties). The 12-point agreement was a watershed event in Nepal’s political history. This was the beginning of the peace process as well as the movement against Gyanendra’s political misadventure of taking over absolute power and attempt to marginalize the political parties thereby imposing a brutal and dictatorial reign. However, the documents related to this agreement and several others have not been in composite and compiled form as the book under review has done. The book "A Half Decade of Peace Process (2005-2010): Its Challenges and Prospects" is a documentation of events that unfolded during the five years of the ongoing peace proces...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal has seen many political experiments since the 1990 political change when the country saw the restoration of multi-party democracy. Especially in the last five years since the peace process began, we’ve seen different types of coalitions and equations being tested. They have included a Congress-led all-party government, Maoist-led majority government and the UML-led majority government. Of all the governments, the one that was headed by Girija Prasad Koirala was the strongest and most broad-based. The parties in Parliament had either joined this government or extended their cooperation from outside. It is for this reason that this proved to be the longest serving coalition government after the peace process began. It also successfully completed the jobs it was entrusted with - promulgation of the interim constitution and holding the election to the Constituent Assembly. Short-lived governments However, all the governments that were formed after the Constituent Ass...

Yuba Nath Lamsal How Nepal can benefit from US-China partnershipYuba Nath LamsalFormer Chinese Premier Zhu Rongii once remarked, "US-China relations can never be wonderful but they really cannot collapse". Although he made these remarks more than a decade ago, they still hold true even today given the complicated yet intertwined nature of US-China relations. But things are moving much more ahead than Zhu's period as China's premiership that was between 1998 and 2003.The latest developments that have unfolded in the international arena are the pointer to the fact that the United States of America and China are getting closer and are in the process of building stronger partnership. Be it the exchanges of high-level visits or joint military exercises or trade and economic cooperation between these two countries, the indications are that Washington under Obama presidency has given additional priority to the relationship with Beijing and its cooperation in tackling several...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Bin Laden's death and its implicationYuba Nath LamsalAfter desperate hunt for more than a decade, the United States has finallycaptured and killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The Al Qaeda mastermindwas killed on May 1, 2011 in a raid conducted by the US special force on ahuge mansion surrounded by think walls and barbed wire in Abbottabad ofPakistan, about 100 kilometers from capital Islamabad. While the UnitedStates, Western countries and their allies in other parts of the world havehailed bin Laden's killing as a milestone in the efforts to combat andcontain international terrorism, there are mixed reactions from the worldespecially on the conditions in which he was killed.Bin Laden got what he deserved because his crime against humanity isunpardonable. As the chief of the Al Qaeda, bin Laden had declared waragainst the United States but his war was not only aimed at America butagainst human civilization and entire humanity. He is responsible forkilling t...

Yuba Nath Lamsal The annual session of the National People\'s Congress (NPC), China\'s parliament, was held in Beijing\'s Great Hall of the Peoples on March 3-14. The NPC, the supreme political organ of the People\'s Republic of China, concluded its session adopting plethora of resolutions on current national, regional and global issues as well as China\'s vision for the next five years. It has adopted, among other key decisions, a new five-year plan that has aimed at maintaining sustainable economic development, hitting mass poverty on its roots, raising people\'s living standard, reducing income disparities, curbing inflation and building more meaningful and cooperative partnership with the global community. The 118-page blueprint for China\'s development for the next half decade was submitted to the National People\'s Congress for a debate and deliberation among 2979 deputies representing a cross section of the society and country\'s different reg...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna was in Kathmandu last week for a three-day visit in which he met with Nepali leaders and interacted with them on several issues including bilateral relations, Nepal\'s political and peace process and matters of Indian\'s concerns. It is Krishna\'s second visit to Nepal since he assumed the office of Indian foreign ministry two years ago. The Indian main concerns that SM Krishna and his team raised in public were the security of Indian investment in Nepal, extradition treaty that India had long been pushing and the control of anti-Indian activities in Nepal\'. However, in secret, he discussed with some of the \' India-trusted\' politicians and people on alternatives to the present \' India unfriendly\' Maoist-UML coalition government. The visit of India\'s foreign minister accompanied by foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and other responsible people in the South Block that handle Nepal desk cam...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal has witnessed some new twists and turns in the political spectrum that have resulted in the formation of the Jhalanath Khanal-led government with the backing of the UCPN-Maoist. This is a positive signal that has heralded a new chapter in Nepal’s political history. The new development that saw Khanal’s victory in the prime ministerial race has demonstrated that the Nepali people are capable of determining their destiny and do not seek external meddling and interference in Nepal’s internal affairs and politics. External powers were openly and blatantly interfering in Nepal’s internal politics and were active in imposing conditions and terms on the Nepali political parties in the formation of the new government. There could have been genuine concerns from some friendly countries that want peace, stability and prosperity in Nepal. These countries are genuine friends of Nepal and want to make meaningful contribution to the development of Nepal. Foreign Interference B...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Habits die hard’ goes the maxim. This is particularly applicable to our political parties that never seem to learn any lessons from history and their past mistakes. It is said that history repeats itself. Our leaders are short sighted and have such bad memory that they forget events and mistakes quickly to allow history to repeat itself. This has been a common and chronic problem in present day Nepal. All the political parties are to blame for this. Now is the time when the political parties need to develop a common understanding and work in a collective and cooperative way so that the political mission with which the country has been moving ahead can be achieved and accomplished. Given the lackluster performance of the parties and their partisan agenda and arrogant attitude, consensus and cooperation among the parties appear to be almost impossible at this point of time. Elusive consensus The spirit of the interim constitution, which is the fundamental law of the land...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal is currently in political transition. Although Nepal has been declared a federal democratic republic - a key achievement of Jana Andolan II held in April 2006 - the gains of the popular movement cannot be formally institutionalised as the new constitution is yet to be promulgated. A transition period is always painful for any country, marked as it is by uncertainty, confusion and instability. The transition in Nepal is already longer than envisaged earlier. And it is still not certain how long the present transition period will last. In such a situation, it is natural for some unscrupulous elements to try to take advantage of the uncertainty and confusion. Foreign meddling In this political crisis, both domestic and external elements are trying to reap benefit at the expense of our new found political set up and also our national interest. The feudal and regressive elements are trying to revive and regain their lost laurels. Some external forces, too, are active ...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Barely six months after the much-vaunted Palungtar Plenum, the UCPN-Maoist has once again taken a U-turn in the party’s political line, and also changing the equation within the party. The new debate started after Chairman Prachanda temporarily suspended the party’s political line of popular revolt and proposed a plan of action to focus on peace and the constitution. Peace and constitution While Vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai, despite reservations on certain issues, has hailed Prachanda’s new proposal as a positive and more pragmatic one in view of the present domestic political situation and international scenario, senior Vice-chairperson Mohan Vaidya is critical of the new proposal and has dubbed it as national capitulation and deviation from the revolutionary spirit. Vaidya and his team have maintained that the central committee cannot override the decision of the plenum and have demanded either another plenum or national congress of the party to decide this issue....

Yuba Nath Lamsal Almost 75 years ago, George Antinius wrote a book \' Arab Awakening" reflecting upon the rising Arab nationalism. The Pan-Arab sentiment then had been focused mainly against the Europeans especially the newly created Israeli state and its patron the United States of America. The creation of Israel rendered Palestinian people stateless that angered the Arab people, mainly the Muslims. The hatred that was instilled in the mind of Arab people was because of their blood relationship with the Palestines. During the height of Cold War when the world had been divided into two camps—US led group and Soviet bloc— most Arab countries and leaders developed sympathy towards the Soviet Union ( now Russia) simply because the United States backed and protected Israel against the hostile Arab neighbors. The Soviet Union had considerable influence in the Middle East. However, Americans and Western countries, too, used their power and resources to keep certain key Arab leaders ...

Yuba Nath Lamsal The role of external forces in Nepal's domestic politics has been a topic of intense debate in the media and intelligentsia. By external forces we mean the major international powers and also our immediate neighbours. These powers include India and China in our neighbourhood and the United States and some members of the European Union. All countries of the European Union may not be interested in Nepal's internal affairs although they want a peaceful, stable and prosperous Nepal and want to cooperate with this New Himalayan Republic. There are certain countries within the European Union that are particularly interested in Nepal's domestic politics and also have their stakes in Nepal. To be specific, the United Kingdom and France are the two European Union countries that try to poke nose in Nepal's affairs along the side of the United States. Role of external forces in Nepal's domestic politics could be analyzed in more than one perspective. There are...