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US dilemma over
Nepal
By Sonny Inbaraj
BANGKOK - Barely a month after US
President George W Bush's second inaugural
address, his government faces a real test - how to
live and lead by the Bush code. And that test
ironically is not in the Middle East, but in
faraway Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom.
On January 20, Bush declared, after he was
sworn in for a second term, that the purpose of US
policy must be the expansion of liberty. "The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of
freedom in all the world," said the president.
On February 1, Nepal's King Gyanendra
dismissed the government and took over the reins
of political power in the South Asian country. He
went on state-run television and said that
democracy in his country was in peril and that the
"Nepalese people's right to live peacefully" was
being threatened by a long-running Maoist
insurgency that has seen over 10,500 people
killed.
He then accused the government of
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of failing to
conduct parliamentary elections and being unable
to restore peace in the country.
Soon
after the king's address, a state of emergency was
declared. Indian news agencies reported that all
telephone lines and mobile phone networks were
shut down - effectively cutting the country off
from the rest of the world.
According to
reports from capital Kathmandu, some 1,000
activists from political parties, student groups
and trade unions have been rounded up nationwide.
Royal Nepal Army spokesman Brigadier-General Dipak
Gurung said that a security committee under the
Home Ministry would determine how long activists
remain locked up. "They can be detained for three
months," the general said.
One of the
first to urge the Bush administration to intervene
was Senator Patrick Leahy of the US Senate Foreign
Relations Operations Sub-committee. "Democracy is
never easy, and no one should minimize the threat
the Maoists pose. But the answer is not to
undermine democracy," said Leahy on February 2.
"The answer, as President Bush expressed
in his inaugural address, is to work, with help
from the international community, to strengthen
democracy. I believe the United States Congress
would welcome that opportunity," urged the US
senator.
But there was no indication that
US policy, including military assistance to the
king's government, was about to change. This is
despite the State Department arguing that "the
dismissal today of its [Nepal's] multiparty
government, the declaration of a state of
emergency and the suspension of fundamental
constitutional rights is a step back from
democracy."
Washington considers the
communist rebels as terrorists. It has been a key
backer of the Nepalese government's battle against
the insurgents, providing badly needed weapons and
training to the country's army.
"The
bombing of the American Center in Kathmandu on
September 10, 2004 - although not claimed by the
Maoists - drew the US deeper into the situation,"
said the Brussels-based International Crisis Group
(ICG) in a report released Wednesday.
"While reiterating its commitment to a
peaceful solution to the insurgency, the United
States gave an additional US$1 million in security
assistance; announced its intention to seek
additional funding for the fiscal year beginning
October 1, 2004 and suspended the Peace Corps
program," the ICG report said. "It subsequently
approved $2.2 million in military aid and $40
million in economic aid," the ICG indicated.
The US government has given more than $20
million in significant military aid to Nepal since
2002, including weapons and training, with some
anticipation that a much larger budget request of
around $24 million will be made for fiscal year
2006.
"Given this history of growing
support for the government's counter-insurgency
activities and the relatively low-key manner in
which the US reacted to the coup, there is
speculation in Kathmandu that the king may have
given its embassy advance word of his intentions,"
said ICG president Gareth Evans, a former foreign
affairs minister of Australia. "Washington's
actions in the coming weeks will be watched
carefully for clues," he said in a statement.
One issue that could be a sore thumb for
Washington is King Gyanendra's frequent citing of
Pakistan under President General Pervez Musharraf,
as a model. The question of hypocrisy plays out
well here, with the US fully backing the military
government in Islamabad, even while it continues
to shun democracy.
Many hold the view that
a concerted effort to bring the constitutional
forces together and develop a package of
constitutional, social and economic reforms is the
only way to regain some of the state's losses to
the Maoists in recent years.
As Senator
Leahy put it: "There is no military solution to
this conflict. Nepal is a place where, not unlike
Afghanistan, a handful of extremists with rifles
and explosives can cause havoc and easily
disappear into the rugged countryside. By
terrorizing rural villagers and exploiting the
government's neglect of them, the Maoists have
steadily extended their reach to large areas of
the country."
Frightening it might seem,
but the Maoists may be the only ones to gain from
King Gyanendra's dismissal of the government. They
can now make the case that they are not fighting a
democratically elected regime, but an
anachronistic and repressive monarchy.
"The Maoists have little incentive to
negotiate at a time when the state is unraveling,
and the constitutional forces are divided. They
are also aware that the military can put little
pressure on them and that they can cause
considerable economic disruption by declaring
blockades and strikes," said ICG's Evans.
The question now is whether the US will
want to get more involved with Nepal, considering
its greater priorities as part of its global "war
on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The writing is
not on the wall, yet.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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