For the first time, Nepalis were given a chance to know that the King alone is unable to run the country smoothly. The news of the government issuing Peace Bond to raise Rs. 5.5 billion is a clear effect of the lack of fund for coming fiscal year as the international donor communities have shy away.

Despite stern warning to the press, some noted newspaper criticized the government’s latest decision saying ‘this would have a long term effect on Nepali economics.’ No wonder, it was a tested formula – by neighbors. India and Pakistan did the same after donors stepped back due to their nuclear test. Notable here is that the Indian were more successful in it than Pakistanis and that’s because Pakistan was being ruled by a man.

Nepali government has probably hopes that Nepalis living abroad would be interested in the bond – and for that reason, it could be bought in equivalent to dollars and named ‘Peace’ – a word that would attract anybody. Continue reading…

The King started using media as a mean of propaganda. State-owned National News Agency distributed a news item in its March 14 bulletin that no newspaper wished to miss. It was about the rift in insurgents’ group saying that top leader had been expelled. All newspaper carried the news with a tag, ‘Says Royal Nepalese Army’. On March 15, the group denied the report but no newspaper could publish it because the authority has directed them ‘Not to publish any news about the group unless given by the Army’.

It is an example of using private media for propaganda and though international media covered the news with denial from the group, most of the Nepalese still believe that the news was true.

To increase the pressure on media and to threaten them, the authority summoned editor of the largest daily, Kantipur, on March 17. Narayan Wagle, the middle-age editor who started his career as the reporter in the same paper, went to Police Station – who have no legal right to question media, on the call and talked with superintendent of police for about an hour on the news about ‘anti-monarch protests.’ With due credit of United We Blog!, a blogsite run by journalists in Nepal, I quote Wagle as saying: “A group of politicians from five top political parties of the country assembled in Bangkok, though I know it though news sites, and decided that they should go for Constituent Assembly which will decide the future of monarchy in Nepal. It is in fact what the insurgents were demanding when they last sat on the table for talk, but the politicians of that time denied to talk on it saying ‘there can be no talk on democracy and constitutional monarchy.’ It is yet to see how the top politicians, most of them are under house arrest, will react, but it was an encouraging decision at the time when there is widespread feeling that the leadership should go to hands of youngsters from those who failed. Continue reading…

Two student leaders Rajendra Rai and Rup Narayan Shrestha were ordered to be released by the Supreme Court on May 16. The policemen were ready to re-arrest them inside the court premises – as soon as they came out along with their lawyers, police tried to arrest them despite protests from lawyers, journalists and followers. Rai was arrested while Shrestha was avoided it by the help of his supporters.

Similar incident happened two weeks ago to Gagan Kumar Thapa and Pradeep Paudel. Both were released by Supreme Court, they signed the papers and were re-arrested.

On May 18, a few communist leaders were released by court orders but the lawyers and others had to do a lot of exercise to keep him away from re-arrest. There were two police vans inside the court premises which were later removed after the registrar inquired about it. Continue reading…

Is peace equivalent to the King’s rule? Is Royal Nepal Army’s success against Maoists is the King’s success? Are political parties and rebel group similar? Are political parties supporting insurgency?

There are attempts to make people believe all the answers to these questions ‘Yes’. But the reality is that most of the answers to these questions is NO. And I strongly believe blurring the border between many things stated above will not have a good result in future.

Here I present my views on each question and the difference in two things compared. Continue reading…

To present itself as the non-violator of the human rights and prove the political leaders are arrested just for a time being in the 61st session of International Conference on Human Rights, the King-led government freed ex-Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and some other political leaders. Deuba quickly arranged a press conference and hit hard on the King’s motive while calling for the unity among political parties.

Newspapers, all dailies, received a phone call from an official of the communication secretary directing ‘not to cover the press conference.’ The newspaper asked for the written directives and when the ministry failed to fax one, the news was carried (although played down heavily). Only two – The Kathmandu Post and vernacular Kantipur placed the news as the main story of the front page while other ‘didn’t missed’ the story but had to be look through to find.

The King, while meeting with the editors of the dailies told the them that the press censorship will apply only for the news of the terrorists, but failed to live up with his words. The directing phone call from the ministry on Saturday is an attempt to use the media as a propaganda machine so that the people read no word against the King.

What did Deuba said? His press release reads (unofficial translation of important parts): Continue reading…

Appeal to the International Community by Gagan Kumar Thapa
on behalf of the Democratic Youth of Nepal

12 March 2005, Kathmandu

After the royal-military coup of 1 February 2005, dictator Gyanendra Shah and his unaccountable military machine in Nepal has been pursuing diplomatic efforts to woo the international community to finance his totalitarian regime. The youth of Nepal struggling for democracy would like to appeal to the international community to stop all military and developmental aid to this unrepresentative, undemocratic and unaccountable military regime.

It is clear that Gyanendra Shah and his military regime want to use the international financial assistance to (a) strengthen their military strength to destroy the democratic middle ground in Nepal, (b) pursue a militaristic approach to Nepal’s political crisis about which there is already a near-universal consensus that it can only be resolved politically, © gain symbolic legitimacy by publicizing the fact that international community recognizes his regime as they continue providing developmental assistance, (d) covertly channel the developmental assistance towards the military establishment, and (e) misuse the development assistance through corruption, which is easier now for him as he has systematically killed all the institutions needed for accountability and transparency of the state. Continue reading…