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The landlocked country of Nepal, between India and China has established a temporary government to oversee elections for a new body called a Constituent Assembly. The election will be June 20th and the results will decide the fate of the king. (1) Prime Minister Koirala and anti-monarchist leader Prachanda called the interim government a "new chapter" in Nepal's history.
The youth of Nepal had demanded the Constituent Assembly to handle Nepal's ancient divine monarchy, which seized power from Parliament in the past and recently in 2005. Nepal is a country that appears of two minds, one that has some trappings of parliamentary democracy and one that also had a god-king powerful enough to command Nepal's army and shut down parliament. On the whole, the people of Nepal mostly believe they are some kind of communist or another.
In this intolerable situation of a monarchy where most of the youth no longer believed in theocracy there arose an armed rebellion of over 10 years led by Prachandaists, often referred to as "Maoists." Another party calling itself communist had won parliamentary elections without being able to end monarchy or bring about real land reform. Referred to as "UML," this other party follows the pro-Deng Xiaoping ideology that Mao opposed in the Cultural Revolution. UML is campaigning for a republic in Nepal as well.(2)
Left open is how the Nepali Congress party will try to incorporate the former monarchists. It will end up trying to appeal to everyone ideologically from Franco to Kerry. Perhaps the Nepali Congress party will support constitutional monarchy again,(2) despite the ugly history of the king's usurpation of power.
Leading up to the interim government were many last-minute maneuvers. The Chinese government
rightly pointed out that the whole dispute over the interim government went against the
accords signed November 8 2006:
As per the agreement reached between SPA and CPN-M on Nov. 8, 2006, the Interim Constitution should be completed by Nov. 21, 2006 and promulgated by Nov. 26, 2006, and the Interim cabinet should be formed by Dec. 1, 2006.However, the Interim Constitution was promulgated on Jan. 15, 2007 and the formation of the Interim Government was also delayed.
Source: Xinhua (3)
As time was running out before the rainy season, there was no one to get the blame for collapse of the election agreed upon in the treaty among eight parties except for the U.$-Indian backed pseudo-Liberals running Nepal. Already, with U.$. partisanship, there has been an unnecessary delay of four months. MIM will also note that the peace agreement that the united $tates hailed did not provide for disarming the rebels contrary to the bleatings we now hear from the U.$. government. The army opposing the Prachandaists said it is not concerned with the disarming of the rebels and is happy with the number of weapons turned in. Hence, this is pure ideological fluff of the career State Department imperialists that was contributing to the delay seen to this point. MIM does not have to know what is going on in Nepal to know that we do not want to see a u.$. role in disrupting whatever wise or unwise agreement there is among Nepal's parties. Nepal's people have the right to choose an agreement among themselves without "red under the bed" scares from the united $tates.
Literally within the week surrounding formation of interim government, the World Bank showed up with a greatly increased program;(4) the European Union (EU) showed up with money to support the peace process;(5) the united $tates offered the prime minister a chance to visit the State Department official in charge of South Asia(6) and England showed up with an increased offer of aid.(7) It's easy to see how Nepal's leaders became busy. As far as MIM can see, the Prachandaists do not offer enough written explanation and interpretation of all this for MIM to hold the Prachandaists accountable even in international aspects of what they are doing. Hence, all we can say to the Nepali people is "we don't know."
MIM has no idea how to evaluate what is happening on the ground in Nepal. Obviously there were various considerations offered to make the Prachandaists and UML forget the previous deals offered--including giving the UML the Speaker of the House position and the Prachandaists the deputy prime minister job in the interim government. Instead, the most bourgeois and pro-Western of the three major parties has all the major posts in the government. An important principle in any organization is "no authority, no responsibility." The Prachandaists and UML took some responsibility in the interim government, but Nepali Congress Party (NC) took the most authority and will hold the most responsibility for seeing constituent assembly elections off. The exploited and oppressed of Nepal will cooperate in ending the system of monarchy, so Koirala has a chance of success.
Notes:
1. http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/04/01/maoists_join_interim_govt_in_nepal_boost_peace_pact/
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6515533.stm
3. http://english.people.com.cn/200704/01/eng20070401_362820.html
4. http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=105118
5. http://www.telegraphnepal.com/news_det.php?news_id=487
6. http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=105128
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6516469.stm