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| Nepe |
Posted
on 28-Jun-03 05:16 PM
After a lot of sweats, I am able to get the transcript of Kanak's sppech. So here is it, the transcript of the speech by Kanak Mani Dixit in a talk program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC on 17 June 2003. The topic of the talk was 'Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Challenges for Building Peace and Democracy'. Other speakers were- Mr. Malinowsky (the US ambassador to Nepal), Jeffrey Key (Asst. Prof., Sweet Briar College) and Deepak Thapa (Himal Association). Julia Chang Block (Ex Ambassador) was the moderator.
A word of warning: It is a full transcript of the speech without any change. I have put punctuations only where it was obvious. The rest is as it was spoken. It would have been good if I could have summarized it for the readers. I apologize for not being able to do that.
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Friends, & & & for this large hall has been filled&.. referes to the tradegy of Nepal.. the country by right should not enjoy such a large audience&.Guess it because of roaring Maoists insurgency currently in & and political instability that is said to give democracy a bad name& The world looks at Nepal with some amount of exasperation. What are you guys doing ? You used to be such a nice and pleasant Sangri-La ! What have you done to yourselves ? What we did was we got ourselves democracy and we are now in the mud bed of trying to make it work. My response towards friends ..exasperation and all& we are not doing all that bad. &There is in the diplomatic circle in the Kathmandu valley, among the donors who weild( ?) such an ordinate power over the Nepali nation state. may be because Nepali nation state has allowed them to, and Nepali speaking elite within the bubble of the Kathmandu valley, there is a tendency to look at Nepals glass as half empty but all it requires is some level of context and we see it is more than half full.
Some of the reason has to go with the cultural arrogance particularly cultural arrogance among the Nepali speaking elite within the Kathmandu valley bubble. But then that bubble also moves over and affects the donor and diplomatic community And also partly deals do with lack of information, lack of analysis of the society, which used to be better covered by the scholarship in the Panchyat years when there was so little was happening. And now weve got this it, I will call it rambunctious if not anarchical democracy, remains a democracy even today even while the king is calling the shots we are still a democracy and we intend to remain so and take it back to the track that we momentarily moved away from.
There is less writing and less analysis except for two or three four books that came out last year or so there is very less knowledge about Nepal Therefore it is very easy to give up and say God. In the surface you see Maoists insurgency and political instability. Then you say..it is very normal. But one reason for this lack of information is that Nepal is a country really devoid of social scientist. Something that I say often, a few social scientists we have been carried away by the donors and made them into consultants, never to come back as social scientist, which should have been possible ..partly because the Nepali discourse takes place vibrantly in Nepali language and it is practically impossible to embassies, donor communities and the Kathmandu valley business elites to understand whats going on if they dont have hand on pulse through the Nepali language discourse which is denigrated which is not followed which is left to itself. So a lot of analysis could be done better if people indeed knew what is really going on in Nepal other than the ciphers and the indicators we see on the surface. Certainly there is enormous problem in Nepal which can not be belittled particularly having to do with the people I would put aside even the constant drum beat of the corruption aside for a while because anybody who & need to tackle corruption in Nepal also need to look corruption worldwide also willing to talk about what can be done to raise the salary of the civil servant to at least three fold they dont even consider that they are talking about corruption only as if that is one point agenda which is messing out Nepal which is also tendency in the kathmandu valley which does not take us too far. Basically the problem in Nepal has to do with the people outside the Kathmandu valley four passes. They are materially of course extremely poor after the economic upturn during the time of tenure of Julia Chang Bloc tenure and later upto 8 % , not necessarily that has to do anything with her presence there, it now down to abysmal figure. The people are hurting in Nepal and today they are without representation- representation that was taken away from them not by the king Gyanendra in the first instance but by the prime minister Deuba, an elected prime minister.
one so they are without representation and then they are without security in the large part. why because for and foremost even today even as we speak with ceasefire and thankfully Nepali are not dying in massive number as it used to be four five months ago but there is insecurity because Maoists walk in mountain trail with gun in their hand and in response sporadically the army and police also walks the same mountain trail. Everything therefore where we move ahead how we move ahead whether the Maoist problem will be tackled whether our economy will move ahead to take advantage of the enormous competitive advantage of the mountains of Nepal do have vis a vis the plain of India etc everything requires the political stability. That is what we are trying to reach for in this last twelve and half years which is not a long period at all in any reading, to try and see how a country which had essentially no experience with parliamentary practice- a year and half does not count in back in 1950 1960 - try 12 years to make democracy work.
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 28-Jun-03 05:17 PM
Political stability: when we talk about it of course we talk about The king, Maoists and the political parties. it is very confusing because there is confusion. it is enormously complex situation with layers and multiple layers of actors and most of them not socialized into parliamentary practice or any kind of practice and democracy in an open society so it is certainly confusing. But it has been a telescope period of learning all of 12 years first in which first five six years there was some learning to do on how do you run a party, first thing, you guy may hate, how do you get the money to run the party. there is no mechanism on how to fund the party. so you need the money. for money, you go to the business house, the business house give you the money and immediately the politicians become corrupt. that is exactly what happened in the first half of the 1990. yes civil society was working to try and trapple (?) with this ineffective though it was in the beginning, the civil society I would include media I would include media the lawyers groups, the human right groups etc. they were all trying and the parties were learning the ropes. the so-called pajero scandal which you might know what it refers to, so I will not detail, would not happen again in Nepal because the media by late 90.. was starting to cover things like that, so was other .organization . of civil society. but over this period the parties were not doing that bad economic gains of much of the 1990.
Freedom of the press: the fact that public can speak out, the very foundation of democracy I believe to speak out, challenge, get a voice, there are films that came out of the tragedy of Maoists war right now and you see the articulation in the Nepali language of the villagers, the Tamang, the Chepang, the Magar, the Rai, the articulation in Nepali is so fine in the first generation speakers that is firstly you get the physical voice. Nepali are in the process of getting the political voice down the line. this is happening. the radio is free in Nepal, it still could go somewhat beyond where we have taken it but Fm radio, just the kind of democratic media that is good for a country like Nepal with 53 languages or more, just the proper kind of media South Asia has not released it way Nepal has released it.
Local governance: again done away with by Mr. Deuba, Local government for the last five years has been a success showing us that the higher up you go in Nepal the more the malpractices and the corruption in Nepal, the further down you go there is more watch dogging and it works . Local government for five years was a successful experiment and we must bring it back. Community forestry which was actually started in Panchayat years but really worked in last 12 years.
Hydropower: there is no load shedding in Nepal today. Arun III project put aside for another day. in the mean time many other projects came to the core. we do have more hydropower today than if Arun II project had been a single key project for the country.
Roads are doubled since 1990.
Where is the failure of the political parties I ask you ?. Because all of this happened under the watch of the political parties.
There was enough malice , enough corruption, enough thing were going wrong but until the Maoists insurgency came in from the left field and essentially diverted us to such an extent that civil society, media, anybody can think nothing but the real time of the mind was taken up by tackling one problem. nevertheless the resilience of Nepali state has shown itself to be rather remarkable and all we need to do is to sort out couple of problems and we are back where we would have been where we should have been and can get there again. So now let me go to the current situation of the Maoists. after having done which is my bed tea for the moment even you might consider asking me why are you giving so much speaking on behalf of the political parties ? because nobody is speaking on behalf of the political parties incongruously. because the political correctness in Kathmandu is to say- ah its terrible what political parties have done ! but next question, so what would you do, who would you have in their place there is nobody.
so the choice before the Nepalese public is go back to the political parties, to demand from the king, the political parties which has the representation in the previous dismantled parliament has the most legitimacy let them run if not pure the technocratic government which now seems impossibility, but go back to the king and say the most representative institution is not the royal palace and nor the Maoists because Maoists have guns in their hands. so it is political parties. they indeed have to be given the power they deserve. and when we keep hearing from the royal palace and the various sources linked to the royal palace that the political parties do not have an unified voice- not true. for months now the two main political parties have been saying in one voice to the king Gyanendra- you take the choice your majesty, whether it can be reinstatement of the parliament or joint our party government, we agreed that Madhav Kumar Nepal should be our prime minister . You might dislike him but he is the right person because two main political parties with the overwhelming majority in the parliament say so. So Since we have no other representative bodies in the country that should be the defining factor. this is what the royal palace has been evading for four months now although I would suggest that I do not see malafide intention necessarily.
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 28-Jun-03 05:21 PM
I see mistakes being made, political mistakes being made for the lack of understanding of political science than anything else.
this is the way out for the long term resolution through parliamentary practices which evens out the edges. so this is where the political stability of the instant may come from. but now the political stability must come from extending the ceasefire into permanent peace. extending the ceasefire into permanent peace has more than to do with the shadow boxing between the palace led government and the Maoists at the moment. without long term peace being defined by the political parties also having a play in the game it will just not work. So where are the Maoists now ? I would like to end by referring to where I understand Maoist are for the moment, why they came above ground ? Because why they came above ground will inform whether they will go back underground or is there a chance they will indeed look for some kind of cohabitation aboveground.
Theyve come above ground for both internal and external factors. In general it has to do with diminishing return among the cadre in terms of what next do you attack. if you can attack thats the army and the police in posts and you can attack at night in the district headquarter but you can not keep the district head quarter and you can not as you said you would, can not take Kathmandu valley because the state we are not allowing to do it then there diminishing return immediately beginning to come into play. The resilience of the state also perhaps was not expected but the Nepali state seen again and again to detour but it continues to remain stand the fact that the Maoists have a lots of the looted weaponry, ammunition of different kinds, so if 3 naught 3 does not work for the police so it will not work for the Maoists. Lots of kinds of ammunition ands so untrained Maoists cadre using ammunitions rather undisciplined way when they do attack posts. and the incredible and quick expansion of Maoists into the hills beyond Rukum Rolpa and Jajarkot and Sindhuli districts means that the hardcore of the Maoist hinterland trained motivated gave way in the larger groups to individuals who had grudges even bandits and other who decided this is the pass to get into specially because this is ..land so it probably became unattainable for the Maoists who continue with the ideological core if they were to allow Maoists to socalled revolution go rampant all over the country the way it did.
External factors, however, probably played much role than the internal factors. external meaning external to Nepal. Because the Nepal army still were learning how to fight for the last year and half after having not have to fight any battle of any kind of consequence for a century and half. The army was found soft on the belly and it was beginning to take on a guise of a dirty war, there were unacceptable number of civilians being killed in a war being fought without intelligence. While army had waited for six years under the wing allowing the civilian police to not the police trained to fight the insurgency the police that was being gifted as a sacrificial lamb before the Maoists to be killed by the Maoists of the same demographic category of village lower middle class killing the police men of the village lower middle class but on whose behalf ? on behalf of the state while army stayed on the side due to few contradiction that remained on the constitution, but more than the constitution, in the constitutional practice, so it was not the army that brought the Maoists to the table. they might have over time to share the backing the army has of the state but it was therefore on the one hand just the resilience of the state that I referred to where army definitely would have some role.
But more importantly the reaction over the last two three years of the united states, United kingdom and India that was decisive on the Maoists having above ground. Promise of the support from the united states of the guns , arms and ammunition in the long term and training but even more significantly the role of India both in terms of sending a very clear message to Maoist leadership many of who have been taking refuge across the open boarder in India- that go back home to fight your own fight there- might- even one can not say which part of the Indian state but there might have been some cuddling there- is no way to confirm or deconfirm that, but one is the message sent and, two: is Maoists fighters intercepted in the hospitals in India and sent back some times against Indian law, three: most significantly assistant given to royal Nepali army by the Indian state to the extent of two billion Nepali rupees thus far. and the chief of Indian army staff was in Kathmandu two months ago and said they are willing to give another billion rupees in the assistance. All of these was a blow to the Maoists even though their rhetoric was anti-Indian and anti-US of course but really they seem to rely quite a lot on some kind of refuge they could get in India. when that was not forthcoming there was need to come back and there was pressure therefore to come genuinely for talks, not like last time which was the talk not on the duress. which is why it is believable this time because they are coming to talk under duress that they are indeed genuine about having talks with the government ..
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 28-Jun-03 05:25 PM
Back to the people of Nepal they are without representation and without security the tragedy of the moment as far as the of Kathmandu valley intelligentsia is concerned I have done the criticism of the donors and diplomats but let me say that the bulk of the criticism should be internalized by the Nepalis who read and write privilege within the bubble of the Kathmandu valley who have not bothered enough about the lack of representation and the lack of security and in this last month since the ceasefire when there should have wave of demands for the rehabilitation and reconstruction to come from Nepali themselves to say ok while the government seems reluctant the Maoists seems extremely reluctant to allow any kind of reconstruction rehabilitation to happen in their regions well where is the Kathmandu valley educated in all of this ? no way, if anything the noise is being made buy the donor community but youd say that is.. their job but where is the Nepali intelligentsia that is probably where the roots of the problem lie in Kathmandu inside the four passes, bhanjyangs of Kathmandu valley. Thank you.
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 28-Jun-03 05:25 PM
Therefore what is the challenge at the moment vis a vis the Maoists and vis a vis the royal nepali army ? because when we speak of the security force it is the army which is got the lead role. When it comes to the Maoists it is extremely important that they are not fractured. Because the moment you have fracturing, and thankfully till now the unitary leadership of Maoists withstood the whatever vicissitudes of aboveground play might have impacted on them, therefore such they remained unified and thus they should remain because we need at the point of disarmament a word to go out down the line to say disarm. Fracturing would lead to two things. It would essentially lead to warlordism perhaps, at the very least increase banditry. the royal Nepal army then let lose among them and lots of unacceptably high civilian casualties. so the Maoists have the problem at the moment because the leadership does seem to recognize it is time to try to make it aboveground. so how to make it aboveground ? You have a cadre that is sensitized glamorized with the views taking over the state. the Marxist Maoists ideology that has pumped into them unadapted to nepali social condition (here he gets a chit from the moderator Julia Chang) Ok I will wrap up in a second, a second for me can be slight longer because I have to speak something about army then I will wrap up.
Certainly important just that the Maoists need to find a way in which to take their cadre along together while they compromise with the state. This is why it is very important to the state to be together, for the royal palace and the parties to be together so that the state or establishment so to speak the aboveground establishment speaks powerfully with one voice. That is what is not happening but interestingly the Maoist seem to be willing at least till last week when I left Kathmandu willing to wait it out to see the problem sorted out between the king and the parties so that they would come into the picture This indicates to me that at the very least for the moment the immediate possibility to going back to the jungle is not there for the top leadership so now they need to be nurtured to make sure that they are able to say what they need to the cadre so that nobody fractures there is as much as possible power in the center Maoists have to show leadership has to show to the cadre it is not o.. to show but some formula has to be found so that they can tell cadre weve got it what we wanted. This is where I will leave the talk on the Maoists.
As far as army is concerned as I said before there is not .. enough preparation on part of the army and now the spectator of the militarization of Nepali society does loom I would not say it looms large but I would say it does loom. And it is very important for Nepali civil society more than anybody else to be on guard to make sure that the army goes back to the role in the Nepali polity that it had in the past that there is not a kind of take over of the particular space because we do want to go back to the anarchical democracy we had and we do not want to have situation where army which is already very active in the field across the country gets so powerful that it feels it need not even stay beneath the umbrella of the royalty it has until now which is actually been some kind of saving grace in terms of keeping the army outside of the bay of the civilian politics so to conclude there is a danger for the moment that the army if Maoist war begins all over if they go back underground that the level of causalities will be much higher. It will be a horrific situation. The Maoist might also then go in for more assassinations and sabotage than they already have of the larger installations than the village development commissions so it the moment of some great concerns at the same time as far as the army concerned while one can understand the need for the army to have modern weaponry particularly if the Maoists are about to reach for AK-47 certainly army should have the guns of equal caliber and ability yes what a little announcement slipped in the Gorakhapatra two weeks ago almost playfully by the army does not go well for what its chiefs might have in mind because it talked about of vendors or representatives of manufacturers of various equipments including armored personnel carriers that I should say ok but tanks and helicopters and aircraft gunships to please come and register consult with the army clearly with the intent that the army was looking at the possibility of the buying helicopter, gunships and tanks God forbid where would we use then in Nepal and aircraft gunships which to me means bombers now Nepal is the country without the air force at the best we should have for the sake of our country helicopter that provides logistic support but the moment you start going to the level of armament then the killing will increase exponentially I would think and we just do not need that for a country such as Nepal which we had which we still more or less have which need to maintain for the future
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| ashu |
Posted
on 29-Jun-03 02:24 AM
Thanks Nepe for taking the trouble to transcribe the interview and post the transcipt.
Appreciate your efforts to add to our collective knowledge.
Reading Kanak's stuff, I felt like I was reading CK Lal's columns. When explanations run out, blame the elites of Kathmandu.
That said, now that Kanak, of all people, too is comfortable bashing the so-called elites of Kathmandu for their myriad sins that have made Nepal such a sinners' paradise, my song would be:
May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Nepali elites please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Nepali elites please stand up?
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| bhunte |
Posted
on 29-Jun-03 02:47 AM
Nepe ji,
i commend your effort putting kanak's words in black and whites. it is like 'dharabahik' serial film. it appears to me kanak ji himself having hard time unravelling the compounded problem in nepal. however, some friends with expertise in conflict management may want to churn kanak's ideas and shade some lights on it. finally, it is unfair to put major share of nation's spinal injury to kathmanduites at the end...
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 30-Jun-03 03:26 PM
Ashu ji and Bhunte ji,
Thank you for your appreciation. I put up a new thread in order not to make the the first thread difficult to surf due to the size of the posting. I request all of you to continue the discussion in the first thread 'Kanak ji ka bicharharu'
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