King Gyanendra to make Royal Announcement (Kantipuronline)


KOL Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 1 - King Gyanendra is to address the nation later this (Tuesday) morning. An official notice by the Press Secretariat of the Royal Palace said the King will issue a "Royal Announcement" at 10 a.m.(4:15 UT) Tuesday morning.
It is not clear what the announcement will deal with. However, it comes at a time when there is intense speculation over holding of elections.

On Monday evening, King Gyanendra met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba followed by separate meetings with heads of different security wings .

Detail of that meeting is not clear. (rk)

http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=30549

This is how I see the current developments at home:

Unlike the popular belief we have two political forces in Nepal - ProDemocratic and UnDemocratic. The ProDemocratics are those who are not only afraid to make their decisions but do so in public and not in hiding. As a result, they understand the consequences and are willing to take their chances. Both the King and the political parties fall under this category. From his latest royal announcement I beleive that King G fully understands his role in Nepal's constitution and country's current and ongoing situation. He has also clearly stated what he wants to achieve in the next three years with his current decision. And he did so by standing infront of the people. On the other hand the maoist are the UnDemocratic forces for they hide themselves behind the barrel of the gun.

I think it is very important for King G to identify himself as a ProDemocratic force like the other political parties and not present himself as a third force. Otherwise the goals and objectives of the two will be mutually exclusive and between the two most of us will find the political parties to be the more democratic (they fought to throw the Pancahyat regime and not King G) and King G will only lose the battle against the likes of GPK and MKN on popular vote.

If both the King and the political parties are the united democratric force against the Maoists then I see the current events as a changing of the leadership to best fight the enemy. GPK, MKP, SBT, LBC, SBD all had their chance to lead the team and they did not succeed so let King G try his ahnd at the leadership and see if he is able to get the job done. If not then change is the only constant and we the people will make that decision.

Mallazi,

If you seriously care about the issue being discussed, it would be extremely helpful to both of us -- AND to the discussion itself -- if you could read the posts in there entirety and respond with thoughtful, reasonable arguments, rather than slander the discussants with callous and cursory accusations.

It is not importnat who did what? Important thing is to rule country in good way. we know congres and unl did not do anything does not mean that the king has to rule country by doing suspending several provisions of the constitution, including freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly, the right to privacy, and the right against preventive detention.

poonte ji. i agree with a lot you had to say, sorry could not read all of it.

अहिले यो बेलामा नेताहरुलाई मात्र दोष दिने अनि देस र जनता बिरोधी शाही कदमलाई थीक मान्नेहरुलाई Democracy कुकुरलाई धिU नपचेको हो।

ok, fine. let's see. one by one. bring it on.

1. so many leaders were inept.
It was a democracy dammit. What the hell were you looking at if you did not like these leaders. What did you do to remove them from power? Instead, you (like me, I am not exonerating myself) just looked up to the leaders and decided that they are powerful and surrendered. Where did that mentality of surrender come from? From our heritage of Hukumi Rana Sashan and Pachayati "parjatantra". If you are disgruntled, speak yo! Well, it's no use now. Next time a journalist comes around and asks you about how you feel about the king, say something nice about the king and you get printed - say something critical, end up in jail. Hey, at least you guys could complain about the leaders, now let me see who complains about the current rulers.

2. leaders were corrupt
And now, the greatest, most corrupt person and institution has taken over power. Just pause to think one moment, just one moment. Where did the king get all his money? Where? Was it not sucked from the people? Oh, he inherited it, huh? What about the people who left it for him. Oh, you say he is a shrewd businessman. Shrewd, my ass. Yeah, if you had such influence over state machinery, you would be a shrewd businessman too. Sadak Bibhag would layer and re-layer the road from airport to Soaltee and ignore the need to build roads in the West. Right, things like that add up. Ok, I will not go into it that personally. Maybe he is a good businessman. But just look at him now. Look how much of your and my money he enjoys. And you say the PM's looted Nepal. Look, the real BIG looter has the reins now.

3. democracy was a failure
I can answer this in four words: YOU were the failure. You there is all of us, btw. it was our system and we failed to hug it, make it our own. we should have woken up from our slumber and taken the streets to protest everything that we did not like: corrupt politicians, maoists, bandhs, tord-ford, whatever, you name it. Wasn't it our responsiblity to take care of the system? Cause, unlike now, WE participated in that system. WE are very good at avoiding responsibility. And we say, we need a good leader. Well, we'll see what our godly leader will do.

4. about last 14 years was miserable
No, it was not. Perhaps, you were the lucky few who did not have of their relatives taken away by the state machinery during the Panchayat time for nothing. Perhaps, you did not have to go to jail for no other reason than having less influence in the police ranks than your biggest competitor. Fock that, I don't need to list all of that. And that is happening again. The great purge. 30 years was good? Yeah, because nobody said it was bad. It's like reading the newspapers today in Kathmandu today and deciding, hmmm, the king's move is supported by everyone. At least, no one, not one single soul opposes it. Nice conclusion, indeed.

5. king thought about us and so he took this step
That is the most bull there can ever be. Look, he always hinted that he was not going to be "a passive monarch". What does that mean? That he is going to actively rule OVER us? LORD OVER us? Hahaha. What a joke. Anyways, don't you see, the reason he took this step is to protect his own ass. If tomorrow, the Maoists strike a "compromise" with him, he will accept it. He is in it to save himself, not his 27 million parja.



Ok, any more questions? You democracy haters, bring it on, bring it on.

Before my carrying on,

Mallazi, let's contribute to the discussion w/o being disrespectful towards others. Believe me, its much better that way.

Poonte,

We have big disagreements here. You have raised very valid and LEGITIMATE counter points, and to be honest I cannot think of any counter-points except to reiterate - and probably corroborate on- my previous points. So my apologies beforehand, if I sound like a broken record.

I am not a skeptic of democracy. I believe democracy should be the ultimate goal for Nepal. A true democracy supplemented by the rule of law, in which everyone obeys the constitution. Not like the fake democracy we had for the last 16 years, which only made our already miserable lives more miserable. There can be many interpretations for this mal-functioning of democracy absed on which/what school of though you subscribe to. I personally believe in a phase-wise democracy because that seems to yield more positive results than an all out transition made overnight.

aaba talk about Nepal.

I more or less agree with you when you say, the whole country was messed up from before. A few weeks ago in another thread, I had written the same thing: Nepal did not go through a rigorous nation building phase that many nation (nation-states) and states went through to come to their present stage of developmnet. Our sheer misfortune, when we were supposed to be educating the people, carry out developmnet works, bridge the gap between the various ethnic minorities (given that in Nepal there's no ethnic majority), we had a 104 years of Rana autocracy. Then for a brief period of time, we had a national governmnet, semi-quasi or whatever democracy. However, things went worse from bad, and Mahendra had no alternatives than to impose the Panchayat System.

The Panchayat system was I think our only effort at nation building phase. It tried to promote nationalism. At least give the syetm some credit it deserves. It also connected Purba-Paschim Nepal. Also it was udner the Panchayat rule, Nepal emerged from an insecure small kingdom situated between India and China to a country that could implement its own independent foreign policy, allign itself with the US and do everything it could possibley do to give us - the people of Nepal- a sense of national independence. It through coersion or whatever other means, did install the feeling of Nepali-ness in the people of Nepal. The system might have other one billion flaws, but you have to look at the good side too, if you want a fair analysis. And for this, I give the syetm the credit it deserves. I don't know where/how/what gives you the impresseion that Panchayat vigorously promoted the King as Bishnu's incarnation. Of course, religiously people had been believing the King to be God even before the Panchayat. For example, in Gorkha people believed that Prithvi Narayan Shah was blessed by Gorakhkali and Gorakhnathl; in Salyan, Rukum people believed that he was blessed by Slayan, Rukum Bhagwatis; in other parts people believed him to to the incarnation of Halchowke Bhairav.. see, these kind of mystifying the rulers was and still IS, if you look at the Smayak Puja tradition of the Newar Buddhists of the valley, a Nepali tradition. Since our culture is based on Hinduism, and we being fatalist people, we whoever sits in that throne of Gaddi-Baithak is extra-ordinary- maybe an incarnation of Bishnu himself. To blame Panchayat for this thinking is not right. Of course Panchayat didn't do anything to change it, it didn't actually promote it.

Beucase it was a nationalist system (not a democratic), the system had enermous potentitals to carry out the reforms necessary to create, develop and strengthen the institutions needed to sustain a liberal democarcy, but it didn't it. This is where the system went terribely wrong. Instead of relaxing the controls, it started to control more, and given what was happening in the world and Nepal from 1989-1991, the system was bound to go. Had the system reformed after 2036 saal, and had it given some basic rights to the people, the system would have survived the 1989-1991 global upheavels.

Since the previous system hadn't reformed, it had to go. The new system which was to correct the mistakes of the previous system, started committing mistakes of its own. A handfull of leaders were the new Sarve-Sarva of Nepal. They led the nation to economic downturn, ethnic divisions, and by comibining the ecomonic downfall and ethnic divisions, they gave us a a powerful force- the Maoists.

Ok Panchayat was bad, but how was the new system better? What did it do to consolidate the system? As fara s I can see, it didn't do anything. Only the name was different from the previous system. They were the same people running the show, with more freedom.. Since they were democractic theyw ere not accountable to anyone, not even the people. So my question is: If panchayat was that bad, awful, terrible, how was the new system different? Didn't teh new system, by foucing more on divisions created more problems than the old one?

Ghoda-chadne manche ladhca.. and naladi kana ghoda chadna sakinna.. but when you are learning horseback riding at the age of 7, you have to find a pony, not a aglo Arbi ghoda.. you won't be even able to ride that, and even if you manage to ride that with the help of others, you will fall. And when you fall, if you realize your weakness and go ride a pony for few years, then the chances are, you will be able to ride the arbi ghoda and might even win the Derby. Our leaders lacked this common sense. They kept on insisting to us taht we 7 year olds wree ready for the Derby...even when we were in our tri-cycle phase.

The Asian tigers learned to ride tri-cycles first, then learned how to ride a pony before they found themselves prepared to attend the annual Derby. Since all the Asian tigers were authritarian rulers, they did not have to paint a rosy picture to the people and give them false hopes. They did not come to power saying "i'll turn Singapore or South Korea into Japan or America".. they knew their limitations, they knew they had to first create a system, build a nation from the scatch, then embark on the journey to economic reforms. They might not have thought that economic reforms lead to political liberalization.. Political liberalziation came as a bonus. And they are now, more or less liberal democracies. Their people are not angry like our's. Their hopes, aspirations and dreams weren't crushed time and again. Our people are angry, our people are hungry and our people are frustrated, and to make the matters worse, our people are divided now. And you expect to have a functioning democracy in Nepal? I don't. I say, first give them food. Then ecducation. Once your physical and intellectual hunger is addressed, you become more calm, more thoughtful in choosing your leaders.

Why do you think many intellectuals opposed the elections in Iraq? They saw a divided society, an angry society taht would have chosen angry representtaives, who in turn would have kept people divided and angry to prove his/her legitimacy. Label me undemocratic. I think in this age of freedom and liberty, rights and representation, I sound like someone from the 17th century. I tend to believe in a phase wise manner, not an all out.

So I say, let's deal with the corruption that has institutionalized in Nepali bureacucary first. Then move towards economic reforms. Let's give people the means to satisfy their physical hunger first. Prmote education. Then you get civil society. Civil society and a strong middle class consumer base is what we need if we want a fully functioning democracy in 20 eayrs time. Its not going to happen overnight. And to reach to taht stage, the state has to be stable. It has to be consistent. It has to be strong. It has to be sensible. Maybe with this Feb.1 move, we are moving towards becoming less corrupt, stable, consistent and sensible. This is why, I don't find it necessary to denounce the new arrangement outright. I will wait and watch. If the new system can help a Ram Bahadur from Rolpa eat two meals a day without having his relatives send him money from Hongkong or Malaysia, I will give this system a 5 star rating. If the new system can make a Hari Prasad from lamjung- whether through coersion or other emans- send his daughters to school, I will give this system a 5 star rating.

mero bhannu yeti ho...!!

how can you deal with corruption when the supreme corrupt wears the crown?

and yeah, a lot was achieved in the 10 odd years of democracy. think abut it. think. remember.

And before I leave this thread, let me add one thing:

Gyanendra Sarkar is not that naiive. He knows if he fails to deliver, it will put the monarchy in danger. So his first goal is to deliver developmnet and peace. Then only democracy. And the King knows that people at this point, want more of peace and developmnet than freedom and voting rights. Its a difficult situation we are in. I too am bit disappointed at the new cabinet, but maybe the new cabinet working under the King's leadership might be able to change things and make the people, the people of Nepal instead of a few congressis and communists.

Again if the political leaders are that concerned about Nepal and it's people, and not power, why don't they come forward and lend their support to the new cabinet and help it achieve its goals? The sooner the governmnet is able toa chieve peace, the better for them (the political parties).. because then King will have no excuse to hold on to power, hoina?

ISO,

We seem to more or less agree that Panchayat was filled with deep inadequacies of it's own. I cannot agree with you more when you say we must give credit to Panchayat for instilling in us Nepalis a feeling of nationalism. However, I must ask nationalism towards what? I would be surprised if you insist that Panchayati nationalism was directed towards Nepali nation, or Napali people. As I see it, Panchayat, in the name of Nepali nationalism, only tried to coerce Nepalis' loyalty to the throne. Instead of Nepali janata and Nepali nationhood being the centerpiece of nationalism, it put Maharajdhiraj ra sarkaar kaa Rajpariwar at the helm of our system, and demanded utmost loyalty to the crown. Without having any doubts that Panchayat was an autocratic rule, one can only suppose how civil liberties were curtailed during the era btween 1960 and 1990. And the effect?

We, as people became hopelessly dependent on "higher authority," truly sadly unable to be free thinkers, and miserably incapable of looking beyond the small shell that we were forced to live in. Therefore, when the supposed "democracy" came in 1990, the people were hopelessly unprepared for what democracy stood for. The products of Panchayat, including all the political leaders post 1990, were utterly inept in freeing their minds from the shell, so they tried to do business ONLY the way they thought was right, laden with old style inefficiencies. Massive snowball effect of corruption due to tyranny (I have explained this above) was not easy at all to get rid of. Hence, the chaos. Do not take me wrong and get the idea that I don't think 1990's were prosperous and problem-free. However, I personally believe that all the massive problems of the 1990's were the direct result of inadequacies of 30 years of Panchayat rule.

Now, having determined that the problems of modern Nepal, including the last decade or so, were rooted in the hierarchical discriminaroty system promoted by the Ranas and the Panchayat, all I am saying is that it is now simply absurd to resort back to the same autocratic rule in the name of svaing the country from further chaos. If KingG is to take Nepal back to the 1960's, without a steadfast committment to GENUINE DEMOCRACY, despite it's massive problems, I do not foresee ANY solution to Nepali problems ever.

I still would like to give KingG the benefit of the doubt and would like to believe he has genuine desire to uplift the country from the chaos and do well for Nepalis. However, I vehemently attest to my belief that he is mis-guided, mis-informed, and his tactics are sure to fail, even if only becuase tyrannies ALWAYS fail, regardless of the benovelent dreams of the dictators. The ONLY way forward in correcting mistakes of democracy is further clinging on to democracy more steadfastly.

ISO, I am not even demanding elections here. I frankly don't know where you got the idea I am for elections, when I have not even mentioned the word once. Yes, I agree with you totally that elections at times of crisis, specially when people are hungry, dazed, and afraid, is meaningless. In this regard, in this context, I too believe elections serve little or purpose of democracy. What I want right now is for ALL Nepalis to be able to think freely and to to be able to express those thoughts openly, without the fear of reprisals. Unimpeded flow of free thoughts, the very BASIC tenet of democracy, is what I demand, for along with food, shelter and security, freedom to think and express is the most fundamental rights of all human beings.

ISO, it sure is easy to support ANY alternative, be it the worst form of tyranny too, at times of utter frustration. Dictators do take advantage of that too to come to power. However, in the long run, ultimately, as human beings, what we all desire, what Nepali business people to gothaalos, houswives to gha(n)sinis, s to bhariyas, bank managers to riksha waalas yearn for is freedom to be able to run their own lives without the undue pressure from the political leader or the king. I remember three years ago when KingG first assumed executive powers, all his supporters were gloating over what they thought was going to be a panacea to all of Nepal's ills. Three years have passed, have we seen even a BIT of improvement as per security and poverty alleviation? NO!

As for the Asian Tigers, you keep saying ALL of them flourished under dictatorships. I think you cannot, and should not, dispute the fact that Hong Kong was never a dictatorship. I still fimmly stand by my belief that the four Asian Tigers flourished not because of the kinds of governments they had, but merely because of the fact that they happened to at the right place at the right time. Their stratragic geographic location in the midst of booming trade between Asia and North America contributed vastly to their economic success, and they would have done so with or without the dictators.

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I totally agree with Iso as well as Poonte bro too.
AS Iso have said we can achieve our goals in phases and lets give chance to KG. I also like that lets see what happens. But as Poonte have raised his concerns which are genuine too cuz we have created and nurtured a system which encourages distrust.
If KG fails heck him out of his throne but lets give him 3 yeaes time frame. Now the biggest question rises what iff he succeed on restoring peace and be able to take Nepal to the developmental path. Here the biggest question marks arises ,do we have to be grateful of him? certainly but how extent. I feared regarding this grateful thing cuz we as nepali society have tendency that they should be grateful what he have done for nepal and nepali ppl. Remind u this question will arise when he will offer nepali ppl to accept his son Paras as a king. What we gonna do at that time? Do we succumbed with his gratefulness to nepal and nepali ppl and accept paras as king? I say no, hell no! WE SHOULD RATHER BE THINKING THERE ASRE SITUTATIONS WHEN A NATION OR ITS PPL HAS NO NEED TO FEEL ANY SENSE OF GRATITUDE OR GRATEFULNES TO A BENEFACTOR IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS. AS ANCIETN GREEK HISTORIAN HERACLITUS HAS SAID "UNGRATEFULNESS TOWARDS ITS BENEFACTOR IS A MARK OF A STRONG NATION" BUT CAN WE CREATE THAT KINDA SOCIETY TO DEAL FOR THAT KINDA SITUATIONS. THATS WHAT WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT.
PEACE OUT

"However, I vehemently attest to my belief that he is mis-guided, mis-informed, and his tactics are sure to fail, even if only becuase tyrannies ALWAYS fail, regardless of the benovelent dreams of the dictators. The ONLY way forward in correcting mistakes of democracy is further clinging on to democracy more steadfastly. "

I may be a naive in this matter, but when we think of it, didnt all the world powers, with exception of few, had some kind of Single Party Ruling System that controlled the goverment, that help them become who they are now. Which one country has corrected its mistakes of democracy and moved forward towards the development of democracy?

Let me give you one profound example, when founding fathers of this nation, America, wrote their constituation down, even they were against Multiparty Political System.

okk i maybe off, but just my 2 cents..you major players goo on :)

phase-wise ko kura nai garne ho bhane pani (and i agree completely with poonte ji here), g shah laai yattikai shakti dinu hundaina.

does a tiger ever give birth to a cow. hukumi shashaan bhitra baata responsible civic society banaaune bhanne notion ta diwaaswapna maatra ho.

swati_thapa,

i also wonder the same thing, after 3 yrs sud we be singing the same nation anthem?

the founding fathers were against giving the parties too much power. they were all for giving PEOPLE the power.

america is an example where society is correcting itself according to the wishes of the people, confused ji.

he he he conf. bro being sarcastic to me
ur comments taken whole heartedly he heh eh ehe

some of the founding fathers anyway.

confused,

yes, many countries had been through autocratic rules in history. even many european countries who now are fine examples of democracy were once reigned by ruthless tyrant kings.

however, after the people realized tyranny was wrong, many of them transformed and moved on, either through violent revolutions, or trhough peaceful transitions.

nepal too has seen it's fare share of tyranny already (a century of ranas and 3 decades of panchayat), and now it's time to move on!

agreed.

Poonte bro,

I get your point. I agree for the East Asian development there were other factors too but those factors were effective because of the authritarian form of governmnets there. If you agree that education is the key to having a functioning democracy, then the first Korean President, Syngman Rhee showed dicatorship tendencies and was in power till the 60s. He was replaced by another authritarian leader and Korea was under martial law, authoritarian regimes till the 80s. But those authritarian regimes could do what the elected governmnets couldn't in the case of Korea such as forcing the people to attend schools and colleges, open up relations with China and Japan and forcefully carry out economic and social reforms.

2. Taiwan- Taiwan was an authritarian govt. till the 90s when the KMT relaxed control and Lee Tung Hui became the first elected ruler of Taiwan. Taiwan like Korea, because of its authritarian form of govt. could provide stability and consistency. That stability and consistency of the state is what the foreign investors look for. Of course both countries siding with the US helped them develop economically to a certain extent, but the social reforms were mainly due to the form of their governmnets.

3. Singapore- Singapore is still an authritarian state. However it ahs come a long way udner the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew and now that he is retired, his party PAP. Singapore's journey from the Third World to the First world could happen because Lee Kuan Yew did not tolerate non-sense dissent. He is one of those few leaders who has redefined the Press ethics and the concept of freedom of press by pressing all international newspapers/magazines including the Wall Street to publish apology and correction, whenever they publish any negatibve news on him. But look at what he has done to Singapore. He turned it into one of the most prosperous nation in the world. If he has beena democratic leader, Singapore today wouldn't have been different from what it was at the time of its independence, the late 60s, with a backward divided society with the ethnic Chinese, Indians and Malays fighting with each other for the control of power. It was Lee who started the housing reforms to bring the Malays and\ the Chinese and the Indians to live together by forcefully evacuating them from their respective ghettos. Do you think it would have been possible under democracy? He copuld place a ban on chewing gum, on broken or gramatically incorrect ENglish, on littering and almost everything you can imagine of.

Malaysia: Malaysia followed Singapore on its development. Dr. mahathir Mohammed is not a liberal democrat. He didn't tolerate dissent but he did make his society stable and rich. Look at Malaysia now. We have to go there to work.

Maybe authritarianism is not the only factor in their developmnet, but you cannot dismiss the fact that it was one of the major factors.

On other issues, I understand and share your concerns. I too don't wnat to be living in a state that constrantly monitors my activities, makes me not speak my mind..but I would tolerate it for a short period of time if it is going to make the lives of those countless people who cannot speak, who are more concerned about their safety and fulfilling their family/socail obligations. . I don't wnat to have my civil liberties at these un-speaking, under-priviliged people. Look at this: How many people in Nepal can read and write? How many people really care about elections, rights and all those lofty ideals? Not many because of the situations they are in. You have freedom of press, but you have more than 60% of the p[eople who do not read. You have 70% of the people who do not have money to buy the newspapers and enjoy their rights to information or civil liberties. First give them education so taht they too can read.. then give them emans so that they can buy the newspapers... when we talk about the rights, we are talking of the elites rights. We are not talking about the common people's rights. And to be honest, if the King's system can at least initiate the process to equally distribute the rights to this and that to this underprviliged sector of the society, I would give it a 5 star rating..