Bichara!!!

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1213&cid=6&sid=80

Nepal's lonely monarch seeks company in villagers and townsmen
Bikash Sangraula - 9/16/2005
Nepal?s sprawling royal palace is one of the loneliest places on earth these days, despite a 10,000-strong security presence. In just over six months after King Gyanendra assumed absolute power, he has lost the confidence of Kathmandu, Nepal?s mainstream political parties, Nepal?s neighbors, and the international community.

No one, except his sycophants, a handful of corruption-tainted and formerly convicted ministers and his generals call on him. Diplomats in Kathmandu are exasperated by the ever-widening gap between the King?s very frequent assurances to restore peace and democracy and his increasingly regressive actions. The continuing police repression of pro-peace and pro-democratic demonstrations that have erupted in the capital in the recent days does hardly any service to better the King's poor democratic credentials.

Diplomats, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom, who frequented the palace after the royal coup of February 1, 2005, to remind the King that this is the twenty-first century, seem to have given up now. They have stopped seeking an audience with him. Arms embargo from India, the US and UK continue with no possibility of being lifted in the near future.

King Gyanendra is a lonely man these days. His loneliness has become King-size with the realization that the people who advised him to stage the coup and venture into active politics in his late fifties were themselves ill-informed about the demand of the times.

Criticized by all and sundry for his ineptitude, the King's last hope was the ongoing United Nations General Assembly where he had hoped he would persuade the international community that there is only a military solution to Nepal's conflict and therefore world powers should arm his army if they stood against terrorism.

The unilateral declaration of ceasefire by the Maoists for three months on September 3, only weeks before the UN General Assembly, was a big blow to the King. After the ceasefire was declared, the King faced the risk of being pressured at the assembly to utilize the truce to achieve lasting peace, by giving the Maoists what they wanted: interim government, constituent assembly elections, and the drafting of a new constitution. After all, that was too little a price to pay to stop a violent war that has already claimed close to 13,000 lives. The King knows that given his widespread unpopularity, drafting of a new constitution means the end of even ceremonial monarchy in Nepal. Therefore, the King dumped the trip and sent a nobody- his biggest sycophant, foreign minister Ramesh Nath Pandey- to the UN. Pandey was close to tears at the airport before leaving for the assembly. He knew that he would have to face there what the King had chosen to escape.

King Gyanendra's government has still not reciprocated the truce declared by the Maoists. Three of his senior ministers, Badri Mandal, Dan Bahadur Shahi and Madhukar Shumshere Rana, have been implicated in a urea fertilizer smuggling racket. Another, Jagat Gauchan, is a convicted criminal. Two others, Tulsi Giri and Tanka Dhakal, are loan defaulters. There is even a sex offender in his cabinet ? Badri Mandal.

The King has nowhere to turn to. Knowingly or unknowingly, Gyanendra has surrounded himself with criminals, thieves, and sex offenders.

For the third time since his assumption of absolute power, the monarch is on a tour to towns outside Kathmandu. The main purpose of such heavy-security trips is to prove to the world his popularity among the people by televising and broadcasting the largely state-sponsored gatherings in his welcome.

Such tours have an obvious drawback. In the past, during his tours to the eastern and remote far-western regions of the country, the king heard over the complaints of the masses on issues ranging from water supply to electricity to transportation to education to health to security. With each assurance from the king that "I will see to it", the poor and the suffering in the regions began to hope that finally their problems would be addressed.

Even in his ongoing tour to the central region of Nepal, the King, in his desire to endear himself to the people, is making too many promises to them - promises that he cannot keep. The predominantly illiterate and unsuspecting population outside Kathmandu is bound to question in a not too distant future the honesty of the promises he is making. The King of one of the poorest and now one of the most politically chaotic countries in the world has neither the system in place nor the funds to fulfill his promises to the people. And Nepalese people, known for their simplicity and gullibility, are equally known for their ability to discredit deceivers.

By trampling on the constitution of Nepal and taking over executive power through a bloodless coup in February this year, the King laid the foundation stones of a path to loneliness. And in over six months, his army and police have built it for him and even put a red carpet over it.

When even the innocent villagers and townsmen in Nepal begin to distrust the King, his isolation will be complete. On that day, there will not be a single town or village in Nepal for him to go to for consolation.

Bikash Sangraula is a senior journalist associated with The Kathmandu Post, the most influential English daily in Nepal.