Alliance for Democracy & Human Rights in Nepal, USA; and
The South Asia Forum (The New School)
cordially invite you to a discussion:

Nepal at the Crossroads: A Year of Worsening Political Quagmire

Speakers and sub-topics

Kanak Mani Dixit
"Chairman Gyanendra vs. The People of Nepal"
Mr. Dixit is a prominent Kathmandu-based journalist who is the editor
of Himal Southasian and publisher of the newsmagazine Himal
Khabarpatrika. He is also a children's author and a cultural activist.

Rhoderick Chalmers
"Prospects for Peace: International Perspectives"
Dr. Chalmers is the Deputy South Asia Project Director at the
International Crisis Group.

The program will start with a 10-minute performance art by Ashmina
Ranjit, a prominent Nepali artist and activist, who is currently a
Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University.

Moderator: Professor Carol Breckenridge, Founder, The South Asia Forum

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Lang Cafeteria (ground floor), The New School
Entrance on 66 West 12th Street
(between 5th and 6th Avenues)

Nearest Subways: F (6th Avenue Line) train to 14th Street Station; 1,
2, 3, 9 (7th avenue line) trains to 14th Street Station.

Free Admission!

February 1st marks the completion of the first year of King
Gyanendra's direct rule in Nepal. To many, this day is seen as a black
day since, in the name of the "war on terror," the King Gyanendra's
government has resorted to curbing civil liberties and cracking down
heavy-handedly on democratic forces in the country. The speakers will
highlight some of the key aspects of the political and human rights
situation in Nepal over the past year and discuss possible ways out of
the morass. Questions and answers will follow the presentations from
the speakers.

Questions?

Sanjay Parajuli: parajulis@hotmail.com, Ph. 917-602-2667
Anil J. Shahi: anil_shahi_et@hotmail.com, Ph. 917-670-1057

Ashu,

You -- despite your high credentials of being a well-educated and an articulate person -- do not seem to cease to amaze me with your occasional pettiness.

"Then again, OF COURSE, Rhoderick Chalmers has to strain to say such appeasing things about the Maoists. Why? Because without them, there will be no further crisis, and, with no further crisis, Rhoddy will be out of a job in Nepal.

This is downright personal and unwarranted accusation on Rhoderick based on your baseless assumption. Maybe you are right, but then again maybe you are not. However, to put forth such unfounded accusation to support your argument is nothing but being petty and unprofessional. I, for one, would believe that in today's world full of conflicts, Rhoderick would have absolutely no problems accquiring another assignment with the ICG should Nepal become peaceful and there would be no need of ICG projects in Nepal.

"If this is NOT spineless, self-serving play on words from someone whose PhD is in some study of languages, what is?"

Again, this is such an unsubstantive (in terms of it being a REAL argument) personal attack on the writer that it'd prompt me to question your own ability to argue with reason and some degree of intellect.

That said, I'd suggest that you also underscore the last couple of sentences from the paragraph that you've chosen to quote from Chalmers' write up:

"No one need accept these [Maoists' gestures]at face value. But their truce had presented the state with a good opportunity to judge them by their actions."

By suggesting we should not accept Maoist gestures "at face value" and by pointing that we should "judge them by their actions," I wonder how his thoughts would be in line with what you term "being in a state of denial about the Maoists". Mind you, the Maoists killed the policemen -- NOT that it was the right thing to do -- AFTER the state failed to reciprocrate the truce offer and further enhance the opportunity for peace in Nepal.

Anil,

You talking about credentials of a person made me wonder if today was April 1st. Actually it isn't, and you are just a fuqing joker!
Before you and your sidekicks go off on me and label me a royalists and bla bla... tell me one thing why I should respect a person who doesn't respect my King? And for crying out loud stay in the topic for a change, and save your mental masturbations to yourselves.

Do people have the right to eat their poop? The argument that you have the right to worship and be fuked by your king is just like that. You respect your king, pray worship but if he is yours why is your king bothering the people while also squandering their money and national resources at his whims? Pray, take him to your attic, carry him on your shoulders and keep him out of Nepal. Only then will the Nepalese people have no business with the murderer-king. But before you are kind enough to take "your" king out, every thinking Nepali with an ounce of brain has the right to speak against him for all the destruction your bullish-king is wrecking on Nepal and its people.

What did I tell you not to do? Keep your mental masturbations to yourself!
You didn't answer my question, and on top of that went off on things you can't prove. I will do you a favor, if you don't have any clue about something ask. Don't fuqing assume! You have no idea about my stance are on the King or you. If you want someone to respect you, learn to rest others, even though theres hate involved.

Peace Psycopaths!

Jhagada sunda sunda ni wakka bhaisakyo.

"learn to rest others, even though theres hate involved. "

The same could be said about you, Vincent, for you are the one bringing profanity to an otherwise decently intellectual argument.
I have to agree with Anil to with some degree on his analysis about Ashu's comments.
"instead of saying that Maoists too are nothing but PURE EVIL whose ideology of hatred has made spin Nepal out of control".
With the exception of some delusional leaders, a common maoist cadre could actually be categorized as uneducated, supressed and vunerable victim preyed upon by certain cunning individuals, catalyzed only by an instable, irresponsible and corrupt government.
I am amazed by Ashu's inability to comprehend the complexity of our problem (or atleast acknowledge the complexity) and his willingness to resort to a simple "good vs. evil" scenario to define the problem.

PEACE (indeed, flip flop)!.

Profanity doesn't only reside in words that start with an f and ends with uck. Profanity also lies in the fact the people who are old enough to be fathers and mothers are setting this kinda example of disgust. Profanity also lies in the fact that in names of democracy these idiots fail to see how democracy is "you are as good as me" and NOT "I am as good as you."
My outburst on this thread is just a sample of if he can take the low road there will be people throwing stones at him too.

Anilji,

Thanks for the information about the talk. Appreciate it.

Just a thought on RHODERICK CHALMERS's article. Sounds like he is really an optimistic person as a person in the resposible position as he is, is expected to be, however looking at the present scenario of the hussles and tussles between the three forces in the country, his idea of workable solution between them seems to be a bit too overambitious to me. I wish it could be possible.

Parroting the westernize way of preaching, talking big talks of democratic values, human rights etc., kind of arguments are usually used by western countries to the third worlds that they are promoting democracy and protecting human rights like they did in Abu Garib prison. These are bunch of nonsense and not at all applicable to the present scenarios in Nepal, where people have been victimized by the corrupt political leaders in decades and later on left out and then the Maoist terrorist took the full advantage of the situation and started burning the whole Nepal upside down. This can not go for long. In order to stop such mayhem some body has to work and that work is not going to be very pleasant. May I ask these learned members why these corrupt politician so eagerly joined hands with the Maoist, even though these groups are declared as persona-non-grata by the West (US,UK). And for the record, these Maoists are still keep killing the innocent civilians including men, women, children, teachers, police men and blowing up the government buildings, schools, hospitals etc. driving down further Nepal’s poor economy. When enough is enough, His majestic in spite of the world condemnation took the right step to clean up the mess created by those people, now these corrupt and inept politicians are crying fowls…… What an irony? What a shame! Now some of our members want to demonstrate against his majestic action in SFO, May I ask what sort of relief that action can bring to Nepal and our people? We already know kind of puppetry role played by UN. Do our learned members think that UN will intervene in our internal sovereign affair and shut down his majesty action! Do they also think UN should install to those terrorist as a care taker of our sovereign nation! (?) Is not the time that we should throw all our differences and stand solid behind until he clears all the terrorists mess and pave the way for successful up coming municipal election.
(I have posted same statement in another forum)

Susant Sharma

Anil,

I stand by everything I have written above.

ICG may be your future employer, but -- let's be clear -- it is just another crisis-monitoring organisation, which now provides decent jobs to expats in Nepal and
Nepalis with degrees in conflict studies of one sort or another.

Nothing wrong with being upfront with that.

No crisis = no crisis-monitoring jobs in Nepal.
Hence, the incentive is to play up the crisis; get more funding, attract more
attention, and so on and on.

This is how the conflict-monitoring game gets played in Nepal -- roughly speaking.
Why pretend otherwise and try to be be some sort of an agnostic political
commentator?

*****
You wrote:

"Mind you, the Maoists killed the policemen -- NOT that it was the right thing to do -- AFTER the state failed to reciprocrate the truce offer and further enhance the opportunity for peace in Nepal."


Since it did NOT happen, we really don't know what would have happened had the state reciprocrated the truce. Let's not go down hypotheticals based on past events that did not happen.

The Maoists did the WRONG thing to kill the police.
No need to contextualise Maoists' brutality by looking at the state.
Let's simply condemn the killings -- and pronounce the Maoists as pure evil.

Alternatively, had the state done something similar, I would have no trouble
\condemning it too -- with no reference to the Maoists' atrocities.

The trouble in Nepal is that everyone pretends to be oh-so-neutral, and makes a mess of things. You can't criticize the government, without saying one line against the Maoists. And you justify Maoist brutalities by saying the state is khattam too.

And the result?
When something of great sorrow happens -- such as the Nagarkot massacre -- it becomes a ramita for a couple of days, with everyone milking it for what it's worth politically and then REPEATEDLY failing to use such an event as a catalyst to START protecting innocent Nepalis.

And to say something like:

"No one need accept these [Maoists' gestures]at face value. But their truce had presented the state with a good opportunity to judge them by their actions"

after 10 years of figting that has hurt the poorest Nepalis the most, this is like trusting the Maoist too much, and expecting wolves to be vegetarians someday.

Good luck, you crisis-wallahs!

oohi
ashu

Even at the height of "practicality", I do find it hard to believe that ALL conflict monitoring organizations and personnel working for those organizations want to escalate conflicts as a means of keeping the milking cow alive. Judging by that theory, you might also say that the human rights monitoring organizations might want to see an increase in human rights abuse, for that is directly proportional to the number of jobs in that field, and the peace-keeping forces and so on and so forth. I would like to believe that atleast some involved in these humanitarian fields are not in it just for the money and job availability and job oppurtinuties. For, not everything, sir, is 'Strictly Business' !

Eminem8,

It's a hypothesis at this point.

That said, from a strictly academic point of view, I am PUZZLED by:

the growth in the number of human rights organisations/conflict-monitoring organisations in Nepal (almost all of these organisations run on donor funds or through other people's money!)

AND

the GROWTH of human rights abuses in Nepal.

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS.

This is akin to the case of finding more doctors where there are sick people.

BUT

When, moving ahead over a period of years, the number of sick people does not fall, you do wonder what so many doctors have been up to.

***
True, there are some selfless human rights activists in Nepal.

But I can't help feeling in the back of my mind that that the majority are maybe in this HR business for a nice and pleasant upwardly mobile NGO jaagir with predictably routine kich-kich once in a while with the government .. .and, hey, if so, there's nothing wrong with that.

At least, the incentives are clear.

oohi
ashu

h my GOD!

Summary of Ashu's Orginal Research Results:

1. Civil Engineers want to have a big earthquake because they get job after disaster.
2. Crisis managers want to make the things even worse to have good income.
3. Economists--- like Ashus--- want to see economically failed state to get jobs (The reason why Ashu supports KG, who is destroying our economy.
4. Do I have to give more examples on Ashu's utmost original logic or let Ashu elaborate it?

I found many new Ashu-like theories here in Sajha from Ashu-like (so-called) intellectuals.

God less Sajha and Ashu both.

-General

General,

What I am saying does confound logic :-)


Here's a "for-dummies" version.

GENERAL observations:

Nepal is a mess.
The number of those who have set up shops to help clean up the mess has been INCREASING in Nepal for the past several years.
Even with all that support over the past few years, Nepal's mess has been
INCREASING all the more.

Hence the puzzle: Why?

I am sure there are MANY explanations.

But ONE
possible untested and totally value-neutral explanation could be this:

Maybe who stand to make some sort of a profit from such mess have an incentive to play up the mess all the more.

And this applies ACROSS the board -- to NGOs, to the decision-makers at the Ministry
of Defense to human rights bodies and so on and on.

I can't help but wonder WITHOUT blaming anyone in particular.

Tetti ho.

oohi
ashu

*****PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU HAD FORWARDED THE ORIGINAL INVITATION TO!!!*****

We regret to inform you that since Kanak Mani Dixit had to cancel his trip to the US given the recent political developments in Nepal, we have been compelled to postpone the event with him and Rhoderick Chalmers scheduled for Wednesday, February 1st. We will inform you of the new date and time when they become concrete. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this unexpected turn of events, and hope to see you at a later date for this particular event, and at future events of the Alliance for Democracy & Human Rights in Nepal, USA.

To mark the “black day” (the “Royal coup” of February 2005) in Nepali political history, please join us for a rally in front of the UN Headquarters in NYC if you can.

Venue: Ralph Bounce Park, E. 42nd Street and 1st Avenue, 3pm-5pm.

Again, event with Kanak dixit and Rhoderick Chalmers @ The New School has been postponed!

Oh! I was planning to go to this event. Had no clue it had been cancelled. I will spread the word amongst the friends I was planning to go with who still don't know the event is cancelled.

Ashu,

RNA has bought dozen or so M17 helicopters, 10's of thousands of M16's and Chinese grenades, recruited tens of thousands of more soldiers, spent billions more on defense, and RNA has not been successful in containing the Maoists. They still have no clue when 4,000 Maoists assemble to attack Palpa.

WHY?

By your logic, can we say that RNA Generals are interested in prolonging the war?

After all, NO WAR => Less defense budget => Less arms and supply procurements => Less commissions for the generals.

Defense aid from the US and India may have no commissions tied to them. But there are still a lot of weapons, helicopters, and supplies that are purchased by RNA in a commercial basis.

Also, another observation that I find interesting is that every time a cease fire is broken, RNA is involved some how (or are blamed by Maoists?)

1) In the second cease fire, Maoists and Government were haggling about the constituent assembly. And RNA murders 16 unarmed Maoists in Doramba during the third round of ceasefire. Maoists use this pretext to break the ceasefire. The RNA major involved in the massacre gets a slap on the wrist.

2) In the third cease fire, RNA sits idle for most of the cease fire. And when the cease fire nears the end, they start their Rolpa offensive. Maoists again use this offensive to break the ceasefire. And surprisingly, after Maoists break their ceasefire, RNA returns to barrack without any major confrontations.

I do not trust Maoists but RNA's behavior is really mysterious. Why even do something that gives Maoists an excuse?

So Ashu, does "the incentive is to play up the crisis; get more funding, attract more
attention, and so on and on, " apply to RNA as well?

P.s. This is also a hypothesis.

I thought this Anil character was heading home to start a revolution or something...that was more than a year ago....it seems he's still in NYC in the good ole US of A...playing second fiddle to Kanak, Nepe, Murari, et al.

Kanak Mani Dixit
"Chairman Gyanendra vs. The People of Nepal"

No matter how much of a credibility he may have as a senior journalist, all those credits are washed away when people like Kanak Dixit go on to discuss on such a topic as mentioned above.

Its not only the King vs The People of Nepal in the present context. The People of Nepal are also fighting against, in many ways, agains the Maoists, the 7 parties. In turn, the Maoists are also fighting agains the parties and the King and so on.

In such a complex scenario, where it is the King vs the 7 Parties vs the Maoists vs the People, all fighting with each other making the People of Nepal bear the brunt of the damage, it is very irresponsible, childish and idiotic thing for Kanak Dixit to do. If he as a responsible person had to speak at a discussion, he could have showed the negative relationship of Maoists and the 7 Parties as well in the equation.

Pats asks:

"So Ashu, does "the incentive is to play up the crisis; get more funding, attract more
attention, and so on and on, " apply to RNA as well?"


One-word answer: YES.

As shocking as this sounds, this has been a very profitable war in a resource-poor country for most DIRECTLY concerned people who themselves have very little to
lose either way.

It's the poor who do the dying . . . on all sides.

oohi
ashu