Last week I posted on FP Magazine’s declaration that Nepali PM Prachanda was one of the worst five world leaders and should resign. Prachanda resigned Monday. But this is not the last we’ve seen of him or his communist followers.

The background to the matter is that Prachanda was the Maoist leader of an insurgent movement that tore through the countryside for a decade. Prachanda became prime minister in a coalition government when a parliament was established and the monarchy later ended. Prachanda’s biggest challenge has been integrating the Maoist forces with the Nepali Army, a challenge for a number of reasons, the first of which is that the two forces have been spending the last decade fighting each other.

Prachanda’s cabinet chose to dismiss the chief of the army after he refused a government order to stop recruiting new soldiers to fill vacant positions until former Maoists were integrated. The president, who under the constitution has powers as supreme commander of the army and guardian of the constitution, reinstated the chief, who has the ongoing backing of all other major political parties.

Prachanda’s next move was tough—he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Maoists take this issue very seriously, but are politically isolated, and they have lost much of their support with other leftist parties by making this a make-or-break issue. Prachanda had a choice of losing his premiership or losing command of his party. In his resignation speech, he spoke in contradicting terms, saying that he was resigning to save democracy, but also blaming the very institutions opposed against him for “striking at our democracy, constitution and the peace process.”

The coalition government may fall if the Maoists leave, but this depends on the other minor leftist parties. Could violence come next? Maybe. India has ordered its troops on the border to be on high alert as there is concern of clashes between the Maoists and the Nepalese Army. (Prachanda also blamed India as one of the foreign powers inteferring in the matter.)

Everest record old news for Japanese climber, 75

A 75-year-old Japanese climber reached the top of Mount Everest on Monday, a day too late to reclaim his record as the summit’s oldest conqueror. Elderly mountaineer Yuichiro Miura, who has undergone two bouts of heart surgery, congratulated Nepal’s Min Bahadur Sherchan, 76, who scaled the world’s highest peak on Sunday.

“Congratulations to the 76-year-old for his successful ascent!” Miura said in a statement issued Sunday from the C5 camp near the top of Everest. “As a fellow septuagenarian, I have also finally reached C5 after a challenging ascent. I will now try my best to reach the same summit, hopefully tomorrow,” he said.

His supporters later said Miura reached the 8,848-metre (29,028-feet) summit at 0148 GMT. They said he met Sherchan on May 16 at the Everest Base Camp and the two wished each other well. Miura was hoping to reclaim the record set in 2003, when he climbed Everest at the age of 70. The record was beaten last year by a retired Japanese schoolteacher, 71-year-old Katsusuke Yanagisawa. Miura went ahead with the latest climb despite undergoing two heart operations since his previous ascent.

Younghusband was elected President of the Royal Geographic Society in 1919, and later became co-founder and Chairman of the Mount Everest Committee which was set up to co-ordinate the reconnaissance of Mount Everest. He actively encouraged climbers, including George Mallory, to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and they followed the same initial route as the earlier Tibet Mission. However, Younghusband was regretfully never able to scale the peak himself.

I don’t want to repeat last week’s post (or comments) on the situation in Nepal, but I am compelled to bring your attention to this article, Management by Helicopter: Carter’s Futile Visit. The article appears to be written by two Nepalese natives, and is unique in that it is neither pro-King nor pro-Maoist (like most media coming out of Nepal), but takes a measured look at the current predicament in the Himalayan kingdom and the interests of the various parties.

Those in favour of a constitutional monarchy would do well to be wary of another trick from the wheeler-dealer. In the view of the authors, whether or not Nepal will retain its monarchy is a decision of the people. Full stop. As stated again and again in this space, this question of state structuring is one that is not to be pre-emptied by an unelected interim parliament. We believe that it is exactly the unpredictability as to how the Nepalese people will vote on this that makes some political quarters want to abolish the monarchy prematurely. Let us not forget that the termination of the monarchy was a key objective of specifically the CPN-Maoist all along.

In this context, it is interesting to observe that the ‘interim government’ tabled a bill in the ‘interim parliament’ amending the ‘interim constitution’ whereby the monarchy can be abolished by a two-thirds majority, if the King was found conspiring against the holding of CA elections. And it is the cabinet which will decide whether the King is creating obstacles. There should be no difficulty in bringing forth trumped up charges. Since the oligarchs have already swelled the ranks of MPs with their own members, the necessary majority should be no hindrance at all.

Prime Minister Koirala’s (he is also the defence minister) zigzag political course is an open book. Some time back, he had only praise for the Nepalese Army. At the same time he and his closest advisers are conspiring to undermine the morale of the officer corps. They are actively promoting the interests of a shady major-general who is set to be promoted to lieutenant-general over the heads of other more deserving officers with distinguished careers. It is also planned to appoint him as the chief of the general staff, and is, therefore, slated to be the next army chief. This is corruption and nepotism of a high order.

The article is also brutal in its critique of Carter’s recent visit:

The visit to Nepal by former US president Jimmy Carter has not contributed substantially to the peace process, nor has it strengthened good governance and the possibility of free and fair elections to the Constituent Assembly in the foreseeable future. What it has achieved is to shore up Koirala’s autocratic regime. At a time when the oligarchs of the Seven Party Alliance plus the Maoists (SPAM) are at loggerheads on practically every aspect of government and cannot move ahead, Carter heaped praise on Koirala, who allegedly “has been a hero for me with his reputation and his integrity.” This is the same man who due to his inability or unwillingness to practice inner-party democracy, caused his own party to split. Little positive can be said about his track record in orderly and clean governance. Carter seems to have missed the wood for the trees when he further elucidated: “He has been the focal point around which the peace and future democracy of this country has been built.” It seems he was not properly briefed on current affairs and recent Nepalese history… The Maoists’ penchant for not honouring their commitments is well known and Carter should have been fully cognizant of that fact before agreeing to act as an intermediary with the US government. Some comfort may be gained by the fact that he visited as a private US citizen and none of his views or recommendations are of a binding nature.

More Nepali views on Carter’s visit can be read here and here.

Upon reaching Lhasa after invading Tibet , Francis Younghusband wrote:

“On the very day after our arrival I and all my staff donned our full-dress uniforms, and with an escort of three hundred men, including some of the Royal Fusiliers and a sort of band from the Gurkhas, we marched right through the city of Lhasa making all the noise we could.”

He goes on to note the Tibetans clapped and cheered loudly being most impressed. A Tibetan account challenges this account noting that Tibetans clap their hands in order to drive out evil spirits:

“When the British Officers marched to the Tsuhlakhang [Jokhang] and other places, the inhabitants of Lhasa were displeased. They shouted and chanted to bring down rain, and made clapping gestures to repulse them. In the foreigners custom these are seen as signs of welcome, so they took of their hats and said thank you.”

If ever there were a clearler example of cultural misunderstanding between invaders and the invaded then this is it. Something we could all do to remember these days.

Both Curzon and I are very skeptical if not downright cynical towards the latest events in Nepal. Despite the King’s abdication and a shakey ceasefire, things aren’t as they seem. The following BBC article takes note of several developments yet fails to see the big picture.

Maoists strive to win hearts and minds

Four months into the ceasefire in Nepal, Maoist rebels and the army are preparing to be confined in camps under United Nations monitoring. The Maoists are refusing to disarm completely. Indeed, there are fresh reports of them abducting and even killing people in some places. But in other locations they are on a drive to win ordinary people’s hearts and minds. They have also started building camps in their own favoured locations.

Building camps? Surely innocuous business.

“The current ceasefire requires a place for us to be together,” says Comrade Seetal, the brigade’s commissar or senior political figure.

[...] the UN monitoring plan will confine the rebels and their big weapons to camps, it does not embrace the smaller weapons held by the Maoist militia (equivalent to their police) or other militias.

In the village camp, the Maoists are filling their leisure time. There are regular literacy classes for their own less educated troops. In the evening light after the rain, a volleyball match.

Given that the Maoists already control a good portion of the country, the current ceasfire gives them de facto rule over it and an opportunity to consolidate control, reorganize and regroup not to mention train soldiers. The situation sounds eerily familiar to Lebanon. In keeping with Mao’s stages of guerilla war, the Maoists are now turning themselves into a conventional army to make the final push into the capital. Like the many so-called ceasefires and agreements during Vietnam, this one is nothing more than a ploy.

NOTE: This is autoposted. I’m still in Italy and won’t be around to respond to any comments.

In his recent roundup, Curzon mentioned briefly that the Maoists in Nepal will be able to keep their arms under the latest deal. It seems that Lebanon has taught us nothing.

Nepal peace process back on track with arms-monitoring deal

The Maoists will be allowed to keep their arms, but will be confined to barracks under deal struck Wednesday.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL ““ Nepal’s peace talks, which a top rebel leader had termed on Monday as “on the verge of collapse,” got a new lease on life Wednesday with with the government and Maoist rebels sorting out differences on management of rebel arms. Talks between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist chairman Prachanda Wednesday afternoon ended with the two sides agreeing to confine the rebel fighters and their weapons within designated cantonment areas under United Nations supervision during the upcoming election process. Mr. Koirala stepped back from his earlier request to the UN to decommission rebel forces.

Allowing the rebels to keep their arms is national suicide. Don’t confuse that with the likelihood of them disarming, but this compromise leaves them the dominant power in Nepal, but simple majority and in terms of force. Real compromise and national reconciliation cannot occur with an armed group dominating.

Nepal is one of the many challenges facing the international community. In the unlikely event that violence doesn’t return, there is nothing left to rebuild in Nepal, it’s completley broken. It is for exactly that reason, for example, that independence for Chechnya is such a bad idea. Nepal needs an overwhelmingly superior outside force to impose peace on it. In 50 years, people can squabble about who’s guilty of what when they have the luxury to do so.

As Georgia knows, in the marketplace for international peacekeepers, demand is high and supply is low. I stand by my previous suggestion which is to turn Nepal into an international protectorate. After that the next best option would be annexation by India.

The disputed border between China and India may not have been properly demarcated, at least in the eastern border between the two countries (as previously discussed here). From India’s the Telegraph comes a blow-by-blow of the handover. (Cached link here.

Chinese, Indian guards conspire to gain inches on each other as VIPs make speeches in the rain
Sujan Dutta

An Indian policeman and a Chinese soldier standing shoulder to shoulder at 14,400ft today crafted the tall and short of a story of how borders go soft despite provoking tempers in South Asia. Constable Harish Solanki of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and a corporal identified as Chang Yeoh played out a quiet drama for several hours in the rain and blustery cold winds on the pass that continued through the official ceremonies to mark its opening for trade. They stood in the middle of the pass as silent sentinels of each other’s countries with the Line of Actual Control demarcating India and China passing between the one’s left shoulder and the other’s right.

Solanki was deputed to be the honour guard on the line from the Indian side. The ITBP has been posted here to secure the 7-km corridor to the Sherathang market, the point inside India till where Chinese traders will be permitted to go.

In posting Solanki at the pass, the Indian side was also complying with a UN convention by which countries agree not to post armies on international boundaries. Viewed from New Delhi, this is a near-final resolution of the issue of Sikkim, whose accession to India in 1975 was objected to by the Chinese. The ITBP is a paramilitary force. The Chinese, however, kept a PLA soldier on the line.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week saw the completion of the Beijing-Lhasa railway and the first overland travelers by train to the Roof of the World. The train stops at major cities Xi’an, Lanzhou and Xining before the 14 passenger cars arrive in Tibet.

The $4.2 billion project takes the train as high as 5,000 meters, climbing so high that pens and packaged foods aboard burst without warning. As someone particularly vulnerable to altitude sickness, I am very glad to hear about the first class cars with oxygen tubes.

I read much criticism that this railroad attacks Tibetan independence and culture, that the train is a tool Beijing will use to overwhelm the Tibetan population and advance China’s illegitimate rule in Tibet. Please. China has occupied Tibet for half a century and independence is no where in sight. Han settlers are already flooding the place, and this train allows travelers acutely vulnerable to changes in altitude (such as myself) the opportunity to travel to Tibet and give the Tibetan locals my First World travel dollars. More travel stands to improve the Tibetan economy and raise the standards of living for more people, not to mention many more business opportunities. And regardless of Tibet’s economic future, that’s a very good thing.

I did appreciate this piece from the Hindustan Times:

On the other it also brings Beijing’s military might precariously close to India. Notwithstanding the current bonhomie between the two Asian giants, China clearly understands the strategic importance of ensuring efficient communication between the mainland and the “roof of the world”. Apart from giving Beijing the ability to transport troops and ammunition, some experts fear it would facilitate an easy passage of intercontinental and intermediate range missiles right to the border with India. It is possible to argue that a rail line that could carry troops and ammunition could as easily carry traders and goods, but given China’s long-term thinking it would be unwise to believe that Beijing would only do the latter.

P.S. Yes, I do plan to take this trip sometime. I’ve been all over China, but never to Beijing or Tibet. This trip would give me the chance to see both regions and the vast country in between. And I could do it overland!

Is anyone else noticing that blogs keep getting more and more specialized? I mean, do you have some random interest that you think is shared by nobody else? Believe me, it’s likely that whatever your interest is, there’s a blog out there for you.

I just discovered Pipalbot, a blog focused on… Nepali-Japanese relations of all things. Read about the first Nepali students to Japan, the first woman to climb Everest (who was Japanese), and former PM Hashimoto’s planned trip to Nepal that was cancelled when he passed away earlier this month. That it’s written in English makes the blog even more amazing.

Granted the site is only two months old and posts are irregular, but it sure does make you marvel at the internet.

I’ve recieved a report from the ground in Nepal from reader Shyam with an interesting outlook on the current situation:

The seven opposition parties are fronting the Maoists. The whole mass uprising was created by the Maoists—when the seven parties called for strikes few months earlier, the public was unresponsive. But when the Maoists threatened physical harm, turn-out was unexpectedly high. You can verify this with Reuters reporting about Maoist infiltration in the mass mobilization.

The unholy alliance between the opposition parties has given way to the Maoists being able to dictate norms, language and action according to their ideology, with the parties as a front. And the parties are in no position to speak out against them. Case in point: yesterday they held a national assembly and proclaimed statues which are in fact that of Maoists, there was no dissent or talk of Maoist. It was as if “one party rule” was already in place.

The idea that is floating around is that the Maoist are already so entrenched in all aspect of government that they cannot be stopped. It is said they are ready to replicate the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, page by page. From the look of it, I see the same.

What really befuddles me is nonchalant attitude of countries like US. Under the pretext of support for democracy they are actually supporting Maoists to destroy every pillar of Nepalese society, from the monarchy to the army. The ground reality is quite different and is obvious to everyone. The Army had never declared war on the Maoist, who are free to recruit, extort and kill while the army is stuck in the barracks. The Maoist strategy even states they will take the capital and the country through the back of political parties.

The main threat is the parties who profess “democracy” while the Maoists, who smell victory, are in control. This has even spread into India, with the victory in a local election by Leftists. Look also at the terrorist attack of a bus bombing in the Chattisgad district of India by Maoists. The time has come to make a hard choice, choose between lesser of two evil or face anarchy that will spread to all region of this sub continent.

I hope I have been able to shed some light of events that is transpiring in Kingdom of Nepal.

An interesting report. This may be strange coming from me, but criticizing only the Maoists misses the King’s numerous transgressions. Certainly the only reports on Maoist infiltrations on the protest are that the government has said this was the case. But it’s an interesting report that I am pleased to pass on to readers.